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On guilt and postage....
Dec. 7th, 2013 01:13 amAnother of the rituals involved in the Patterson holiday experience is Elly's annual struggle with Christmas cards. I should think that even now, the same woman whose reluctance to simply toss 'perfectly good' food away means that she bequeathed unto Deanna a freezer filled with destroyed food is still sitting at her kitchen table groaning about who is or isn't on her Christmas list. While I do empathize with her fear of accidentally offending people she talks to on a regular basis, it seems rather foolish of her to worry about the Feggmutzes, Snelgroots and Zitzlaffs of the world. Sadly, Elly is nothing if not diligent in the performance of useless tasks that aren't really expected of her and wouldn't have any consequences if she didn't do them. This means that she'll plod grimly on worrying about offending people who worry about offending people they'll never meet again either.
To do otherwise would expose Elly to a very horrible concept. It would expose her to the horrible idea that most of the obligations she thinks are vital are nothing of the sort. You will no doubt recall how one of the episodes of the television series had Jim take her aside and explain that no, the world would not come to an end if she didn't use nutmeg in the eggnog and no, she's not a failure as a wife, mother and woman if the only person who noticed the nutmeg in the first place got his metrosexual, laptop-saving bowels in an uproar because he can jolly well buy eggnog with nutmeg at any convenience store in the land. She feigned adherence to his heresy because she didn't want to make a scene but she didn't really believe him; if she did, that would mean that she's running around in circles doing things that people only came to expect because she let them. Hell, if she were to listen to him, she'd have to fend off the Decorum police come to shoot her for buying an artificial tree.
To do otherwise would expose Elly to a very horrible concept. It would expose her to the horrible idea that most of the obligations she thinks are vital are nothing of the sort. You will no doubt recall how one of the episodes of the television series had Jim take her aside and explain that no, the world would not come to an end if she didn't use nutmeg in the eggnog and no, she's not a failure as a wife, mother and woman if the only person who noticed the nutmeg in the first place got his metrosexual, laptop-saving bowels in an uproar because he can jolly well buy eggnog with nutmeg at any convenience store in the land. She feigned adherence to his heresy because she didn't want to make a scene but she didn't really believe him; if she did, that would mean that she's running around in circles doing things that people only came to expect because she let them. Hell, if she were to listen to him, she'd have to fend off the Decorum police come to shoot her for buying an artificial tree.
