I Have Been to the Mall

I am pleased to report that I have heard the bane of my Decembers past, “Wonderful Christmas Time” only once this season! On the surface, this is a fine, fine state of affairs because those sleighbells make me mean and surly, however what it means, really, is that something has replaced it ( and before it, Mary’s Boy Child) in the Holiday Torture Canon. That something comes from Sarah McLachlan’s new album Wintersong (or as I’ve heard it referred to, The Nipple Album – you be the judge:

I do think she looks a mite chilly but anyway, she’s covered “River,” a lovely, bittersweet Joni Mitchell song. She’s done a good job; it’s a perfectly inoffensive treatment. But I heard it 4 times today at the mall, as well hearing it every day at Safeway, the liquor store and at the end of ER I think, last week, so I am wandering around in a blue haze now, mumbling about how I drove away the best baby I ever had and how I wish I had a river to skate away on. Which, I suppose, is a suitable enough sentiment for the time of year (dark, stormy weather, breakups [I’m thinking here of the girls behind me on the bus, one of whom recently ended her 2 year relationship in part because, “I was, like, GOD! I just don’t even want to THINK about buying you another present you’ll HATE!”]) but might not be the best music for shopping. Drinking, yes. Shopping, no.

Now as soon as the marketing geniuses figure out that drinking and shopping go together (I am thinking of copious red wine sampling at Walmart, specifically, actually, I’d PAY to drink wine while I shopped at Walmart) like bacon on waffles, they’lll have earned the right to play whatever music they want. Until then, I’ll just have to keep getting liquored up before I leave the house and you know Trombone reacts violently to clouds of rum toddy-breath billowing over his stroller.

Babies. They’re so sensitive.