PHSSD

I am feeling assaulted. That's pretty much my theme for 2012 (note to myself: vow to be reflective at some point other than the week between Christmas and New Years). The first 2/3 of the year brought other people's overwhelming medical issues and the incessant tension surrounding them. When that finally dissipated, shingles got me within a week. Now that's fading out after nearly 4 months, and I'm reeling from weeks media frenzy, which may have been there all along but I'm just really honing in on it now.

I think that it struck me right around Christmas day, because there was an ad inserted in the paper that screamed in bold type Doors Open at 7:00AM December 26 and in subhead type Redeem Your Giftcards.

Having just endured what seemed like an endless series of sales, from Black Friday to Cyber Monday to Free-Shipping Day, still every day there is someone screaming at me to buy something. NOW!

I'm at the point now where I don't even want to buy the stuff I need to buy, which is bad because I really need to buy that stuff. I feel like I should be waiting for a sale, or even better, a DOORBUSTER SALE.

I'm being only slightly facetious here. I always liked reading ads, but at this point it's simply too much shouting. We'll go right from New Year's to post-holiday clearance to White Sales to Valentine's Day to President's Day. It will never stop.