The Lore of Ye Olde Cyber Monday

Gather round, children, if ye seek to know the true tale of how Cyber Monday came to be. Surely you have received missives from merchants hitherty thither, writ large in shouty caps. What of this Cyber Monday? And why this messaging of such urgency? Pray thee listen to the lore, for we will conjure the spirit of ye olden and golden days of the separation of our labors from home and hearth.

You see, our pocket robots were not always the tyrants you have known them to be! There was a time, beloveds, long before the metalsmiths made rings to debase your sleep debt, when your forebearers would venture home from their workbenches and be internet-less for entire stretches upon the Lord’s day. It may bemuse you, but I assure you, it was a splendid time to be alive. 

What’s that? How ever did we know how to cook? Why, we consulted the dusty, hardbound tomes full of recipes!

From whence did our intelligence come about hailing a carriage for hire, or to ply foodstuffs from hucksters who would deliver to our cottage door? And further, how did we navigate cobbled streets without so much as Mapquest directions from the scribe or block printer? Work emergencies? O’er week’s ending? It’s a mystery, fair ones, how we managed at all, even now….

And yet, it was our great delight to venture forth, after the ale and frivolity of Thanksgiving, to resume industry at our workbenches on Monday morn. We as the noble cobblers and scriveners and spurriers of our era, were verily eager to poach the High Speed Internet afforded by our proprietors and masters! Oh how those websites of the shoesmiths and milliners sparked and unfurled so fluidly, like the scrolls of the town criers! Caught in the world wide web’s thrall were we--simply mesmerized by the wares of the merchants! The skills of the online peddlers, what with their sterling promises that if we merely bought five pieces of crockery, we would receive one pot compliments of the potter. Imagine? To live so high on the hog. The expiry of those sales threatened action, post-haste, lest we tarry. 

Thus was Cyber Monday. 

What may escape ye, though, is the vernacular of “cyber.” For while it may seem an innocuous term, or even obsolete term by any stretch of your modern imagination, now, know this, Buckleshoe McGee: This word once carried a heft to it. It was an adjective seasoned with not only salt, but savory spices. Ay! It was even once a verb! Goodie Prynne and Reverend Dimmesdale were well-aquainted with its implications. The Googleman can illuminate you, should you crave to know more. 

Although ye may no longer observe this high holiday, I pray ye mark with gratitude the omnipresence of Lightning Fast Interwebs of which your generation benefits and brain rots in equal parts. I encourage your support of our robust economy, children. I pray ye acquire a host of trinkets and other novelty items that will catch your fancy, this and every Cyber Monday in this brave new world!!  

I Am Fuller McAllister, Alleged Bed-Wetter

Happy Holidays. This is the annual reminder that I am now a Grown-Ass Man and, not only do I not need reminders at every friendly fete to go easy on the fluids, but I am here to clear my name as an alleged bed-wetter.

Like all caboose babies in a large fold like the McAllisters, I was the butt of every joke. My cousin Buzz? The obvious source of my angst. He was a stuffed sausage full of hormones, with an ill-advised haircut for the first 32 years of his life. (No one keeps a tarantula as a pet who is not deeply insecure.) The only time he wasn’t wielding insults at me was when he was shoving his piehole full of cheese pizza.

My cousin Kevin was not much better, though I know he is still working through the PTSD of being abandoned two Christmases in a row by his parents. He may have first spread the rumor that I wet the bed, but my dude was just Going Through It. His only “friends” were a septuagenarian bachelor and a pigeon lady. His whole life was a cry (::slaps hands on cheeks:: AHHH!) for help.

Indeed, to merely survive as a McAllister was a daily struggle. “But Fuller!” you may be saying, “Look at all that economic security your family had! And all that togetherness!” To which I will remind you that the early 90s were still the wild, wild west of white privilege. So what if I did whiz the mattress once in a blue moon? Do you think perhaps it was because of a slightly insecure attachment to the “adults” who always appeared to be asleep at the wheel? Explain to me how they never faced charges of frequent criminal negligence of minors.

You want to talk about “Les Incompétents”?! Look no further than my own parents, Frank and Leslie: the epitome of learned helplessness. Big Frank was a tightwad who never paid anything forward but tone deafness. And ol’ Les may have forbidden us from drinking cola, except on special occasions, but this was only to enable Big Frank’s addiction to the syrupy goodness he would guzzle in the garage, crushing cans of Coke and Pepsi — with a large rum chaser. No wonder he was always a crank. Who calls children “little jerks” to their faces? Especially at a big family gathering? It is only in the fullness of time that I’ve realized I am the product of a functional alcoholic and a codependent doormat.

photo courtesy 20th Century Studios

For this reason, it feels extra cruel that everyone is still telling me to “Go Easy on the Pepsi” and ribbing me with reminders that the “rubber sheets are already packed.” I am still processing the cluster of my childhood in which I was inexplicably dressed each day like an academic research librarian. This year, I am not your Tiny Tim. I’m steering clear of your spiked egg nog. I will not be disappointed at all if I did, in fact, make my family disappear.

You have been unsubscribed from the American Dream.

You have been unsubscribed from the American Dream.

We’re sorry to see you go! Would you mind telling us the reason you unsubscribed?

• The content was no longer relevant to me.

• I’m just taking a break until 2020.

• I didn’t realize it was set to auto-renew before 2020.

• I didn’t know I had subscribed by being born on U.S. soil.

• I just finished Between the World and Me.

• I am not a mediocre white man who has romanticized his forefathers’ immigration story.

• It looked like Spam, both the virtual and the canned form.

• It was too expensive, e.g. for my soul.

• I thought this was for Blue Apron.

• I was only able to take advantage of $0.79 of the benefits because I have a uterus.

• The flat pebblesnail has more constitutional protections in the state of Alabama than I do.

• It is easier to purchase an assault rifle in North Dakota than it is to order contact lenses.

• The Dream was not translated into my primary language.

• It was not included with Amazon Prime.

• It wasn’t as user-friendly as I had hoped.

• I’ve moved to Canada like I promised I would.

• My children are separated from me, probably in a cage without medical care.

• Other