text: It wasn’t even Thanksgiving yet. *♫ Jingle bell, jingle bell ♫* *♫ Jingle bell rock- ♫* *♫ Snowin' and blowin' up bushels of fun ♫* *♫ Now, the jingle hop has begun- ♫* Goddamn this song. What an especially stupid rendition of an already-atrocious song. The stupid beach guitar made mubydram feel like he was stuck on an overcrowded beach somewhere. The same stupid riff over and over again with the same douchey vocals. These motherfuckers can’t even wait until Thanksgiving to start playing Christmas music, he thought. mubydram was trying to fill packaged chicken but of course, with the holidays right around the corner, and with the chicken aisle being adjacent to the ham aisle, the aisle was packed with carts and panicked and edgy customers and their noisy families. One particularly shrill noise was emanating from a cart containing a toddler crying to his mom for his phone. Unbelievable, mubydram thought. This kid can’t be bothered to pick up a book and read something and instead he wants a damn phone. No wonder this society is becoming illiterate. And he was getting louder and more shrill too. The mother of course was distracted on her damn phone as well, presumably asking her husband what kind of ham to get. They’re all the same damn hams, lady. Just pick one! If she could just move her damn cart and shut her stupid kid up, mubydram could finish stocking chicken and get the fuck off the sales floor and back into the sanctuary of the cutting room. The kid kept crying and finally let out a shriek. Heads turned, and his mother finally turned her attention away from her phone and toward her son. She called his name sharply and he stopped for a moment. She turned away again back to her phone call. Finally some relief, mubydram thought. Nope, he started crying again. mubydram stopped stocking and turned to look right at the kid, dead in the eye. It wasn’t a nice glance. In fact, it was a mean old eyefuck. A look that said, “You better shut the fuck up, kid, if you ever want to celebrate Christmas ever again.” And that kid’s heart sank. You could see it in his eyes, as if he suddenly learned that there are much worse things in life than not having his phone. He started wailing. mubydram grinned and turned back to stocking and the mother turned back toward her son once more. She was finished with her phone call and gave her phone back to her son. He kept crying. mubydram finished up and started collecting boxes. The mother was confused why her son was still crying. She looked at mubydram and he greeted her with a big smile and in his customer service voice, “Hi! Find everything alright today?” She replied that she had and mubydram pushed past with his cart and wished her a happy holiday. It was a look that really said, “Happy holidays, you fuckers. I’ll be here working.