Sentence of the Day, Social Justice Edition

"If you're not at the table, you're on the menu." — A friend of mine in her role as a panelist at a social justice forum yesterday. It's not original to her, but boy howdy, did it resonate in that context

Shaming Santa

WARNING: This post is inappropriate for younger readers. Younger readers, if you read past this point, you may find things you do not want to find.

OK, so I'm just going to admit it.

I don't understand what's supposed to be happening in the world of the song, "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus."

Like, does the kid think she's caught her mother cheating with Santa, but really, it's her dad dressed up as Santa, so, adorable? If so, why would parents go to the length of dressing up for their sneaky kid only to break the magic by making out?

Or in the song, is Santa real, and the kid has actually caught her mother cheating with Santa?

Or is someone else dressed up as Santa?

In any case, why does the kid think it would have been a laugh if her father had only seen?

Is the context putting presents under the tree? Or some kind of grown-up party the kid's supposed to be in bed for?

Does kissing Santa not count, because he's Santa?

Or does kissing under the mistletoe not count, because it's festive? This is the only explanation that makes any sense to me at all, though even there, the tickling is just weird, right?

Maybe Mommy and Daddy and Santa are in some form of polyamorous relationship, which everyone's fine with, but then why's the kid making such a big deal out of it?

Seriously, this song has troubled me literally since I still believed in Santa, and I haven't figured out anything that makes it less troubling since. Fortunately, I mostly forget it exists. But once I hear it once (and I did, Saturday, in a nail salon), it's enough of an earworm that it bugs me for weeks. If any of you folks has anything that can resolve this, I'd welcome it.

Errand Grrrl

We haven't talked a lot about the advantages of living in a small city, over the other kinds of places I've lived in: small towns and big cities and even medium-urban non-city census-designated place counties.

But here it is.
At 12:58 p.m., I was pulling my car out of the work parking lot.

I then:

• Drove to the bank
• Parked
• Went into the bank
• Endorsed two checks
• Deposited them
• Drove to the library (narrowly avoiding hitting RI's step-grandmother as I went)
• Parked
• Went into the library
• Applied for and received a library card*
• Found the book I wanted
• Checked it out
• Drove to the dry-cleaner
• Parked
• Dropped off a comforter for cleaning
• Walked to the fish market
• Bought lunch
• Drove back to the work parking lot
• Parked
• Walked back into my building and up the stairs to my office.

At 1:29 p.m., I was sitting at my desk, eating phenomenal seafood chowder and writing this post.

Thirty-one minutes, friends.

*I already had a college library card, which lets me take books out of either library. Today, I decided it was high time I had an actual city library card.