swipe swipe SNAP!

I love Christmas.  For me, the mention of Christmas conjures up the smell of hot apple cider and fresh Christmas baking around the fireplace, a cold nose from Christmas tree hunting in -35 degree weather, Dutch Blitz and 1000 peice puzzles.  But I know that for some people, Christmas doesn't have all the warm fuzzies attached.  For some people, it's all about dodging the purse-swinging lady on the escalater as you compete for the last Cabbage Patch doll on the shelf.  It's about stretching the limit on your credit card for the grumpy, thankless children who you'd love to send back to school two weeks early.  The spirit of the season could sometimes better be described as stressed out, frazzled, hassled, beleagured... etc.

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Take the gas station cashier as an example.  After putting thirty-and-some litres in my tank last week, I handed my neglected credit card to the man behind the cash register.  (I say neglected because as a student heading back to school, my credit card has spent a lot of time in the wallet and is only invited out for necessary purchases... there's no way I was over my limit.)  The cashier swiped it once.  No luck.  He swiped it twice.  No luck.  He looked at the uncooperative Mastercard with a look of disgust and frustration that would cause even the most heroic credit card to tremble in terror, and snapped the poor card in half.  Then he gave me a conciliatory look and held my traumatized credit card out to me with a hint of uncertainty, "My machine is no good and your card was damaged, so it broke."  Uh... okay.  Merry Christmas?  I couldn't do much except hand over my fearful-for-a-good-reason debit card and hope the Snapper didn't go serial on me.

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I hope your Christmas was a merry one; that you've found a rest stop and pulled out of the rat race.  But if you've reached the end of your sanity and are on the edge of your own personal SNAP! then consider my personal favorite when it comes to de-stressors: find a snowglobe with an idyllic winter scene.  Take it out back.  Pick up your hammer...

And stay away from my credit card.