I’m dreaming of a patient Christmas
All I needed to do today was get to work.
But that meant passing a mall and several Starbucks stores.
Safe and warm in my car, I didn’t care about the slow pace of traffic.
But, Holy God, people were so grouchy.
It sounded like National Test Your Car Horn Day.
And Lord have mercy on the folks who weren’t
going on green because they would be blocking the intersection.
Then it looked like National Test Your Middle Finger Day.
Even the lady in the new Honda Pilot who waved me through
so that I could turn left gave me a look that said,
“I hate you, but I will let you turn left because you are pathetic.”
This is what Christmas shopping looked like.
I swear, people in Richmond are going to be
opening presents on Christmas Day that feel just a little off.
My friend Valerie and I were in a sub shop once
and the girl who made our sandwiches was so grouchy
and mean that, back at the office, Val stopped eating
her sandwich half way through and said,
“This tastes like hate. I can’t eat anymore.”
Late tonight, long home from the traffic of the day,
I saw this photograph of my brother and sister in front of the tree.
It looks like my parents got the roll of film developed in April. APRIL.
Man, I wish some of the people stuck in traffic today
could have had that kind of patience.
Love to all of you who are out in the world today.
—Amy McCracken, from 3x3x365
In a year of discovering many wonderful writers who have been writing for a long, long time, Amy McCracken stands out as the most wonderful of all. Her stories are enchanting and engrossing, full of the kind of telling that gets you to thinking without ever having to resort to preaching. Maybe it’s a Southern thing.
Also (as if the amazing writing weren’t enough) she’s in charge of one of the most fantastically successful animal shelters I’ve ever seen. Their marketing and promotion is superb—beyond non-sucky or even plain creative to near-flawless, stuff you actually want to engage with. Amy makes me want to move to Virginia and work for her and those damned animals. And I hate the South.
Speaking of which, they’re doing a dandy thing for the holidays called “Operation Silent Night”: host a pet for the holidays, so none are in the shelter. How great is that? And yeah, probably some of those fosters will turn to permas. Nothing wrong with that, either.
In fact, I’m gonna go give ‘em a few bucks right now. Might help shake me out of my own cynical, over-holidayed, Grinch-y funk-mas.
