{"id":273,"date":"2008-12-18T06:25:20","date_gmt":"2008-12-18T11:25:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greatsociety.org\/?p=273"},"modified":"2018-10-31T09:12:05","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T13:12:05","slug":"silent-night-deadly-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/?p=273","title":{"rendered":"Silent night, deadly night"},"content":{"rendered":"

At this time of year I always find myself singing the theme song to 80\u2019s slasher classic Silent Night, Deadly Night<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Except I don\u2019t remember the theme at all, and can barely recall any of the films, so I just sit around alone, rocking back and forth, singing \u201cSilent night, deadly night\u201d tunelessly whilst staring into middle space.<\/p>\n


\nIt\u2019s one thing to do this at home but, as Christmas draws near, I start to do it at work.\u00a0 I have vast amounts of free time at my various low-paying jobs, and long ago made a pact with Satan that, no matter where I find myself employed, I will only devote one hour of every eight to my job.\u00a0 Satan was hesitant to agree, though, because I refused to use the seven other hours in his service.\u00a0 The pact officially reads:\u00a0 One hour of work and seven hours of watching fruit rot.\u00a0 These days, I don\u2019t often watch fruit rot.\u00a0 I have watched a creek freeze.\u00a0 At least once a year I actually, literally, watch paint dry.\u00a0 But, for the most part, I\u2019m just staring into space and talking to myself.<\/p>\n

That can be off-putting enough, but once you launch into \u201csilent night, deadly night\u201d in an Evil Dead II possession voice, I tend to cause what we\u2019ll go ahead and call social friction.<\/p>\n

The problem is that I\u2019m not really aware of the habit.\u00a0 So there are moments where I suddenly realize that an entire room of people have stopped dead and are staring at me in horror because I\u2019ve been singing \u201csilent night, deadly night\u201d and giggling, insensible to anyone around me.<\/p>\n

This is one reason I drink.\u00a0 I\u2019m much more engaged when drunk.\u00a0 I\u2019m aware of the people around me.\u00a0 Largely because I become paranoid and think they\u2019re out to get me.<\/p>\n

Christmas is always hard, though.\u00a0 Even when fueled with booze, I\u2019ve never liked the holidays.\u00a0 And there\u2019s nothing for me to do at this time of year except think about that.\u00a0 Except, admittedly, this has been a very different year.\u00a0 No gifts for anyone, and, with my grandmother gone, I probably won\u2019t receive too many gifts except from the odd friend.\u00a0 With all the money gone, I\u2019ve resorted to saving every penny.\u00a0 This means I go days without showering, and I make candles out of junk wax that I scrape up from the floor at my weekend job and, occasionally, at local churches.\u00a0 I boil the wax down in a pot, which I stole from my neighbor, and then pour it into glass bowls, which I stole from my weekend job.\u00a0 For wicks, I use stinky pieces of string that I\u2019ve stolen just generally throughout my days.\u00a0 I\u2019ve always stolen things.\u00a0 Never anything of value.\u00a0 Well, unless mugs of money by the office copy machine has value.\u00a0 Although, there are those who argue that money has no value.\u00a0 Especially when it\u2019s anonymously stuffed into a coffee mug.\u00a0 I figure stealing that is the same as scooping up coins from the bottom of a fountain\u2026which is something I\u2019ve often done.\u00a0 Most of the stuff I steal, though, is useless.\u00a0 I call it liberating functional trash.<\/p>\n

Personally, I\u2019m thrilled to now have a use for the bales of string I stole off of that pick-up.<\/p>\n

The candles last about a week, then I head out to church with a patented \u201cwax remover\u201d that I stole from my weekend job.\u00a0\u00a0 I don\u2019t attend or participate or make any attempt to fit in.\u00a0 I just slip in with plastic bags and flit around in the shadows like some demon.<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s this unwashed guy making candles in the dark singing the words \u201csilent night, deadly night\u201d over and over again.\u00a0 Then watching episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation<\/em> at top volume and laughing hysterically at lame Data jokes.<\/p>\n

I realize this paints something of a dark picture\u2026 But it really is just because of Christmas.\u00a0 Come the summer, I\u2019ll sit out on my balcony in the warm night, completely naked, drinking straight from a bottle of vodka.\u00a0 Much more interesting and constructive.\u00a0 And, when it\u2019s warm, and not appropriate for the season, I tend to stop singing \u201csilent night, deadly night.\u201d\u00a0 Typically, during the summer, I switch to singing \u201cget your missiles ready to destroy the universe\u201d to a tune of my own creation, where I build up to a warbling crescendo on \u201cuniverse.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At this time of year I always find myself singing the theme song to 80\u2019s slasher classic Silent Night, Deadly Night. Except I don\u2019t remember the theme at all, and can barely recall any of the films, so I just …<\/p>\n

Silent night, deadly night<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[122],"class_list":["post-273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rants","tag-holidays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=273"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":992,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions\/992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}