holiday spirit
November 22, 2001 03:08 PM

Pragmatism.

Is our word of the day.

Meaning. It's a good idea to steel oneself for torture prior to entering the familial estate. And it's a good idea to be thinking, just a little, "fuck it".

I'm pretty sure there's a proverb of some sort about this. Something about preparing for one thing and praying for another.

But what it is. Is I come from pragmatic stock. We solve problems with logical solutions. Even if the logic is dizzying and the solutions irrational, mathematically or otherwise.

And my solution is this. For a happy holiday good time, mix. One haircut (night before). Enough antihistamines to render oneself slightly dizzy but not ill. And dire, completely irrational though not unfounded, predictions of holiday doom. The latter best administered as loud, ironic predictions and declarations in the privacy of one's own car.

Even people you like seem horrid just before a holiday. But put a magnifying glass up to that horridness and store the image in your head for later. The horrid can simply never be that huge.

Think the worst.

And come prepared for them to like you just as you are.

It works every time.