Catalog.

It was on the table, a catalog from a well known online retailer. Sitting on top of what must have been yesterdays mail, the bold title "Thanksgiving Edition" caught my eye. It is only the middle of October, everyone needed to reminding there was something between Halloween and Easter to spend money on.

Schmaltz populated by the usual well-kept Stepford family. Two accommodations to modern sensibilities were made. There was an older woman, the Grandmother and a woman of color with slightly Asian features with an insufferably cute curly headed daughter, probably the live-in Nanny. All the women shown were slender without curves, well kept in the manner of the 1% There were a few men with facial hair scattered but they were cardboard characters to ladies. Scenes of thoughtful cups of coffee interspersed with shopping bags and confidences shared. It was an expensive shoot, designed  to think that if you bought these clothes, you too could be one of them.

It is all a fantasy.

In the real world, Grandma's tummy hangs over her privates and hair pokes out around a flowered scarf. There is no Nanny, just a random girlfriends alternating between screaming and laughing at the half-dressed, mud faced kids. The men still have beards, but they haven't been trimmed in six months Nobody has the money, so everyone sits down to whatever got scrounged up for supper.

And in the end.

They are still thankful.

For, in spite of everything, they are alive.

Comments

  1. A nice reminder, it is good to be at the top of the food chain, regardless of pedigree.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In Honor of Al Jaffee

The Date (Blogophilia 13.5)

Mr. Rogers (GBE 2 101)