WIP

I didn’t have time to put on the ornaments, but here is the start of Christmas decorating. As usual, I got fooled by the strings of lights when I unpacked everything: they worked fine last January when I put them away, and now they do not. I should just buy new ones before I even go to the tree lot, but I hate thinking of these things as disposables. This time I ended up with several half strings; spent some precious time trying to figure out how to access the teeny tiny fuses, plugged and unplugged ‘em, shook ‘em, tapped ‘em, said unkind things. Thought about braiding two halves together to make a whole. Phoned 4 hardware stores to inquire about stock on hand, and ended up driving up to the next town to a store that had an impressive full aisle of both incandescent and LED lights. As I was browsing in the tinsel area, a guy with a big box under his arm made a hasty exit through the emergency door, slipped right into his vehicle which was in the closest space, facing out, and drove away. I couldn’t believe I’d just seen a very brazen shoplifter! The alarm was blaring, the staff did not seem happy, but nobody did anything, police weren’t called. We live in a no consequences world. I guess this happens all the time now, but I was stunned. This adventure took up most of the time I had planned to be trimming the tree, which brings us right around to the first sentence.