We’re a Kodak family.  That’s not such a strange thing being where I am from.  By 1982 more than 60,000 people in Rochester worked for the ‘yellow box.’  At its height Kodak reigned supreme as the number one film supplier world wide.  In 1946 my parents met at a KPAA basketball game; dad was a star player, my uncle Jeff introduced them to each other.  Dad went on to spend his entire adult career working there, retiring in 1986 after 42 years of service.  Most of my family either worked there, or had at some point spent time with them.  Needless to say we took pictures...lots and lots and lots of pictures.  My mother was never without camera in hand.  It was a relatively normal experience to have more damned pictures of us all looking less than enthused to be having our pictures taken.  By the time I came along in the late ‘60’s the norm was color slides in our house.  The photographic evidence of my baby years is daunting as is the entire first half of the 1970’s - twenty six carousel trays, some double trays holding up to 140 slides.  Luckily the slides were kept in what was probably as close to archival storage as possible... our front hall closet rarely deviated from 50 degrees year round.  The stacks and stacks of trays lived there for as long as I can remember, only coming down for periodic shows... you know, those 70’s style, “Let’s invite our friends over to see the slides from Hawaii!” shows...Ummm, yeah.  Fun.  If I thought the slideshows were boring,  I was in for a hell of a great time scanning them 30 years later.

Browsing through Craig's List this evening I came across a (romantic?) listing in the 'Missed Connections' section, entitled, "Sexy foot hanging out car window at Target parking lot Weds. afternoon" So I had to check it out. The ad itself read: I'm the tall guy you were looking at who want to come over to your foot hanging out the car and suck and lick on those delicious looking toes and soles!!!"

Apart from the stylistic use of English grammar I thought, "What a romantic thing."

And then I thought, "what would someone do if suddenly they were HAVING their feet licked and sucked, quite out of the blue? Regardless of whether one gave that 'come hither I want you to suck and lick my delicious looking toes and soles' look.

But then I thought, "What would the 'come hither I want you to suck and lick my delicious looking toes and soles' look be? Would you have to bend and contort your body simply to get your head out of the car window at the same time as your feet? Or would you rotate, sticking your feet out as bait, then switching positions and looking around to see if anyone went for them. Then back to the bait casting, then back to the looking... and so on and so forth. And how long would this go on? All afternoon? What is the best time to do this? Rush hour? Lunch time?

And then I thought, "Wait... this was in the Target parking lot?!"

And then I thought, "Ewww."

Two days before Christmas, 2007.  It's been a craptacular year.  And it's a craptacular day!

Snow?  Not here!  We don't get snow on Christmas anymore.  I'm sure it's God's punishment for something.  You KNOW we're all sinners, so watch out!  50 degrees and raining, that's the outlook for today.  Of course it's last minute shopping time and everyone and their retarded brother is out in the malls, on the streets, in the parking lots... doing what you would expect:  being incredibly fuCKING STUPID!!!!!!!

Ok, I'll admit, I'm just being a grouch.  I'm sure I'm not in the minority.  There were plenty of people I came across who were in exactly the same mood I was in while I was out.  Those were the ones who stayed clear, out of the way... and we got along JUST fine.  Perhaps there is an understood code of the curmudgeonly?  Well, here is to the Christmas Curmudgeons!  Oh, and lady... get the HELL out of the way when you get off the escalator!  Don't just stand there!