What IS the Empire coming to?

What's this empire coming to? Now they want us to stop greeting people with "Io Saturnalia!" "We have all these different cultures in Rome," they tell us. "We shouldn't offend anyone," they tell us, "We've got to be inclusive."

We've got the barbarians from the north with their tree decorations and their fire rituals. And the weirdos from Gaul, cutting mistletoe with a golden sickle. And the Mithraists, the Zoroastrians, the Isis cults, and, of course, those characters who hang out in the catacombs. "Hail, Winter!" we're supposed to say. I ask you, what next: we lose the feast? We stop the Solstice parties? No more honoring Ops, goddess of abundance?

I was buying some greenery down by the Forum the other day, and there's old Macrobius with some Visigoth chick, and she goes, "Gut Jule." And I go, "Hey! In this country, we say, "Io, Saturnalia! Maybe you should go back to where you came from." Then Macrobius goes, "She can't, she's a slave."

Whatever.

At this time of year, the Visigoths sacrifice a pig and burn a special log that they dance around, instead of acting like normal people and going to the temple of Saturn.

I swear, I was at this party over at Septima Commodia's house the other day. She always has a Saturnalia party. Anyway, she decorated the place with prickly green leaves. "It's holly," she said, "The latest fashion from Brittania. They all do it in Londinium."

It gets worse.

She had this statue of some goddess from Ultima Thule or somewhere, name of Frigga, sitting right there on the dining room mensa. I mean, this is darned near blasphemous. I'd be scared about what the lares and penates would do if I put that thing in my house. But Septima Commodia just said, "Oh get over it! We're cosmopolitan around here." Cosmopolitan. That's what they call it. Well by Jupiter, I live in Latium. I'm a Roman. And this empire was founded on the principle that the gods, our gods, must be honored at the appropriate time and in the appropriate way. None of this foreign heretical nonsense or these strange customs from Germania or Hibernia or Palestine. I say, "Io, Saturnalia!" and if you don't like it, you can leave.

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stolen from tass

Holiday shopping fun

That's me. Just a regular ray of fuckin' sunshine.

One of my pet peeves that will send me up the spout without fail are people too lazy to put their shopping cart in one of the corrals that most stores and supermarkets have in their parking lots. It's exponentially more irritating when said corral is two parking spots from the asshat in question.

After finishing up some VERY last minutes shopping at the Meijers' in Ludington after work today, I noticed some fuck in an SUV put his "heavy load" ( 4 grocery bags ) that so demanded the use of the gas-guzzling monstrosity that he was piloting. He then put his shopping cart BEHIND the car next to him. The cart corral was only two spots from his gashog. Pushing it to the next spot meant he was less than ten feet from it!

Of course, my civic mindedness (and the chance to be an asshole to a stupid fucker) demanded I intervene.

While walking up to the SUV as he was getting in, I made a show of looking at the front of the vehicle. As if I saw something under it or I was checking the license plate out. The dolt didn't notice me until I was up to the driver's side window and knocking on it.

As he rolled the window down to ask me what I wanted, I looked at his rear-view mirror.

"What are you looking at?" queried Lazy McLaziness.

"Sir, are you handicapped in any way?"

"No, why? I wasn't parked in a handicapped spot." replied Lazy.

"I know this sir. I was just curious as to what level of handicapped, either physically or mentally, one had to be in order to push a cart ONE DAMNED SPOT away from the corral and not go the extra distance and put it away properly."

Lazy started getting a bit irritated, " I'm in a hurry."

"I figured that. That's why I am wasting at least three times the time it would have taking you to be courteous."

At this he muttered fuck you and tried to drive of as he rolled his window up. This is when he realized I had ahold of his side-mirror.

"Drive off and the mirror stays with me."

...

Just doing my part to spread the holiday cheer to crackerjack fuckers one and all.