...When All is Said and Dunn

As I have mentioned once before in this column, one of my pet peeves is the leaving up of decorations after the holiday has passed. Personally I start to get annoyed after a couple of weeks, but when it goes into months I begin to get manic.

It is coming up on six months since Christmas has passed but I still see houses that have their Christmas lights up. That in itself is irritating enough, but what is even more bizarre is the people who are still turning them on. I don’t know about you, but that is just out and out stupid.

Hello there, did you not get the memo on the power shortage? I believe it was passed out around the same time that you were putting the damn things up. That is, of course, unless you didn’t bother to take them down at all from the past season.

Maybe I’m missing the point, maybe there is some grand scheme or movement out there that I am not aware of. Perhaps this is some act of civil disobedience that these people are making. They may be a group of urban rebels that are making a stand against the power shortage and the Edison Company. Viva La Lights!

Or it could be an underground movement of Christmas fanatics who are attempting to keep the holiday going year round. They just stay hunkered down in their house surrounded by mistletoe, holly wreaths and decorations, eating Christmas cookies and drinking eggnog. Viva La Fruitcake!

There could be a medical reason. Maybe they suffer from some phobia that prevents them from taking them down. Coloredglassaphobia, which for you laymen out there is the inability to touch colored glass after January 2nd.

A religious cult? That’s it -- a religious cult! They are all people who believe they have been abducted by aliens and enjoyed it. They enjoyed it so much that they want to go back and the aliens told them to leave their Christmas lights up as a sign that they want to go back. Yep, that’s got to be it.

Nope, I don’t think so. Although it would be more palatable than the alternative. That being what I am sure is the truth. That they are just too damn lazy to get up there and take them down. Which I suppose is some form of medical condition in itself, but one that I have no sympathy for.

Some businesses are no better when it comes to taking down signs and decorations that are out of date or have already served their purpose. Buffet City on Rosemead Boulevard for example. The place has been open for months and it still has a Grand Opening sign up. How long does a grand opening last for? If you leave it up there much longer, you are going to have to add the word father to the grand.

And what is up with those cheesy looking plastic flags on a string you have draped around the building? Putting them up in the first place wasn’t a good idea, unless of course you are trying to attract the guys who decorate used car lots. But after hanging up there for 5 months they are not even different colors anymore. They are all kind of a faded out off-white color, which to be quite honest isn’t what I would call attractive.

By the way, the address of the place is 5449 N. Rosemead Boulevard, Temple City, the phone number is 626-285-9595. That’s just in case you want to go to eat there. It’s a little something that this paper’s “food critic” seems to be incapable of telling you in his articles, but that’s an article for another day.

So back to the outdated and out of season signs. Here’s what I think needs to be invented. Christmas lights should be made so they eventually dissolve in about a month. That’s just enough time to get them up, enjoy them through New Year’s, and then they would be gone.

Now with the business banners you need something a little flashier, something that you can use to draw a crowd. What I propose is banners and flags that spontaneously combust on a specific day and time. That way you can advertise the event, draw in customers, and be rid of the scenic blight all at the same time.

But until that day comes you perpetrators of these eye sores are on notice. Put down the bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken and get up there and take down those things. You got up there once, I’m sure you can do it again.

That’s unless the aliens helped you the first time.

The Shrub Speaks: “If a person doesn’t have the capacity that we all want that person to have, I suspect hope is in the far distant future, if at all.” May 22, 2001, Washington D.C.