We’ve reached a new low on the Battle for Advent: My house now sports an Ordinary Time Tree.
I told the children they ought to crown it for the feast of Christ the King, but they were too busy ignoring admonitions about liturgically-correct decorating schemes while they quick tied up all the cut limbs with red plaid bows. In memory of the souls in purgatory, I’m sure.
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Early last week my trusty Surface Pro (reliability rating: 7th Circle of IT Hell) spontaneously quit working, forever and ever amen, while I was using it. I assume it was pre-punishment for my caving on the tree. So I spent the week sharing one PC with a man who was home “on vacation” working all day at the one PC.
And that’s the story about how I became a Black Friday shopper.
Surreal part: No lines, no crowds, no traffic. I gather that the “we’re closed on Thanksgiving (until 5pm)!” thing is causing all the crazy people to get their manic shopping needs taken care of on the vigil, leaving the daylight hours to those of us who don’t love the contact-sport side of holiday shopping.
Disturbing part: I purchased a laptop named after a deadly sin.
It was on sale, so it’s okay, right?
More disturbing part: It was not the right deadly sin.
If you told me I was blogging from a machine called wrath I’d consider it truth in advertising. Sloth and gluttony come to mind as obvious runners-up. Were it a school chrome book, now the go-to way to avoid the hassle and expense of textbooks even though students don’t learn as well online, we could call it avarice.
But envy? Nah. It’s shiny, but not that shiny. Envy is why we have the ordinary time tree.