Ten Ways of Explaining the Christmas Gift Saga to a Kid

Upon waking up on the morning of the 25th of December, Karl Jr and Wendy go and find basically gift certificates there, and no gifts.  Dad needs to explain this:

1.  At some point in 2021, the EPA did a review of Santa's sleigh, and deemed it a problem....so Santa couldn't deliver gifts.

2.  Santa got Covid and nearly died, but he's on the recovery now.  Sadly, it'll be December 2022 before he's back to full-strength.

3.  Santa's wife caught him with two elf guys, and is divorcing them.

4.  Santa fired the elf who handled the database, and they corrupted the files before they left the office.

5.  Santa was kidnapped by radical revolutionary types (leftwing of course).

6.  The North Pole is melting, and polar bears ate three-hundred of the elves over the summer.

7.  Santa was taking Ivermectin, and had a serious reaction to the horse-dewormer medication.

8.  Santa consulted with Donald Trump, and ruined his business plan for 2021.

9.  Santa had a operation, and has not fully recovered yet.

10.  Santa's reindeer were confiscated by wildlife officials in Alaska.   

President Biden's Moment on the Logistical Chain

 This week.....reality hit, when most people came to realize that Christmas is going to be crap because of the supply chain business, and shelves will be mostly bare by early December.  

So President Biden met with the postal folks, Fedex, Wal-Mart, etc.  The port union guys?  They aren't mentioned.

My five observations?

1.  Back in early June, 'Mayor Pete' should have noticed the delay business, and in less than two weeks....sought major action at the ports on the west coast.  He failed.....miserably.  Already in August, he should have been 'fired'.

2.  President Biden reacting?  He should have grasped the mess/chaos in August and reacted then, but couldn't.....because of the Afghanistan mess/chaos.

3.  If you drag UPS, Fedex, etc....into this mess....they could hire up people to ship faster.....but they will adjust their rates for this chaos, so you will pay 5-to-10 percent more in the end.  President Biden didn't tell you that part of the story.

4.  The odds that we have another wild chaos brewing right now and will come to realize it by the end of December?  Better than 80-percent chance.

5.  ALL of this leading back to Covid?  Yeah, and Covid in 2022 (2023, 2024 as well) looks just as good. 

When will shipping and logistics look 'normal'?  If you watch the business news reports....no one is suggesting early or mid 2022.  

Amusing?  I think the laugh factor will dissolve away by December, and most everyone will be frustrated to the max.  The whole worry-on-Covid business needs to just go away.  

Is Black Friday (26 November) the Drop-Dead Date for Chaos in Logistics?

 Well....yes.

If you walk into most stores and the electronics area is only 50-percent 'full' or toy area is barely 70-percent 'full'....then it'll be noticed and by Saturday afternoon.....the shelves will be empty.

The effort by Amazon for damage control?  I suspect you will get 'ordered' when you sign on and 'click'.....but get a message four days later to say the item is on back-order.  New delivery date?  Probably four to six weeks away....if you are lucky.

So it'll start by Monday after Black Friday....people asking President Biden how to resolve this and getting a 8-minute speech on how things were in WW II, or how Covid is with us in the long term.

Settle back and prepare for that Monday, and how you view the landscape from that point on.  

If You Tried to Bring back Petticoat Junction or The Brady Bunch Today

 The producers would automatically mandate that there has to be some type of sexual connection.

So from Petticoat Junction:

Uncle Joe would have be iron-clad gay and mostly attracted to NY City guys.

Kate Bradley (the hotel gal) would have to be an transsexual (originally named Bob).

At least one of the three daughters would have to be a lesbian.

Sam Drucker would have to be into new fetish every single week.

From the Brady Bunch?

Carol (the wife) would have three to five lovers on the side.

Bobby (at age 13) would be attracted to only black women over the age of 30.

Mike (the husband) would have disco-dance routines only with men.

Alice (the housekeeper) would be swinging on Friday nights with various Hispanic men over the age of 65.

So this is the problem of producing a show today, because a quarter of the population wants to know the sexual action of each character.

Was Maxwell Smart only into women?  Was Mr Ed only interested in female horses? Did Timmy (from Lassie) grow up and run off to Silver City with Nurse Watson?  Was Otis from Mayberry never hooking up with the post office lady?  Why was Hoss from Bonanza not married at age 35?  Did Detective Dietrich (Barney Miller) wear silky women's clothing after wrapping up duty?  Was Ed Dawson from Green Acres secretly dressing up on weekends as Queen Elizabeth?  Why was Scotty from Star Trek never hooking with the Andorian alien women?  

I know....it's some weird consequence of society....that a quarter of the population wants the 'down-and-dirty' of fictional characters.  It's like we couldn't get enough lusty stuff out of Baywatch, and we want triple the amount of lust out of fiction. 

The question is....have we peaked, or will this get worse over the next decade?

 

Feeling the Pain

 The chatter over missing items for Christmas presents grows louder.  

I noticed an electronics expert identifying both cellphones and smart-watches as items which will be in very short supply this morning in the business news.

The kid-toy experts?  Already saying if you don't have the gift here in October in your hands.....it's probably too late.  

So, who to blame?

Biden or the next dozen people under him?  You can't really make that case.  You could go out to the ports of SF, LA, Portland and Seattle.....asking why the major cranes aren't working around the clock, and get some dopey answer from the union chief there.  Some people are suggesting that a lack of truckers also fits into this problem.

Here's the thing though....if you had $1,000 which was generally spent on gifts from Black Friday to the 24th of December, and you barely spent $250 of that.....what happens to the economy?  What happens to sales tax revenue?  What happens to the store fronts which pay $10k a month for rent/utilities?  

If that path slows down.....what about the brake pads for your car which you'd take in for a tune-up in February.....only to be told the pads are on back order and won't be there for another six weeks?

Your watch band breaks and you show up at x-shop.....wanting a particular style of band....only to be told this is on back order, and it won't be there for at least two months?

Your new washing machine breaks, and the warranty (thank God) is still in effect.  You call George to repair it.  So George looks at the problem....diagnoses the broke part....only to tell you it's on back order and not to expect it for six to eight weeks. 

Your old mower finally gives out, and you've got $1,500 to spend on a particular new mower.....only to be told the series you desire, is on a three month back order.

At some point, whether Joe Biden fits into the problem or not....he will start to get the blame for a Soviet-style logistical system, which can't function.  To be honest, sitting and trying to listen to him describe the problem is such a pain....that you dig the cheap whisky bottle out and go through six shots to soften your 'pain' and frustration.

I'm going out on the limb here, but I'm predicting we are nowhere near the bottom of the pit, and will start to feel intense pain by the fall of 2022.  If tractor tires aren't there.....the harvest season squanders away, with less food being delivered. 

If you stop at a coffee shop on the way to work, and the kid says the $15k Einstein-like coffee machine is broke and awaiting parts from the port.....which might be six weeks to six months away, how will you react?

If you stop at the pharmacy to pick up a box of regular band-aides, only to find of the twelve possible boxes normally sold....the only box there is a box of Micky Mouse cartoon band-aides.....will you accept that?

If you stop at eight grocery/drug shops over an afternoon....to buy a box of condoms for your treasured weekend with 'Wanda'.....only to find they are all out of condoms, how will you react?

Come the end of 2022....I suspect our 'blame' stage will be reaching full capacity.  

Comparing the Biden Period to Seinfeld

 One of the odd aspects about the Seinfeld Show....was that it concerned a group of four and their lives in a 'nothing-world'.  They'd hang out at the cafe.....run into weird characters....mostly discuss things that really didn't matter much.

So I gaze over at the Biden situation and am somewhat amazed that the Biden 'Show' is mostly about 'nothing'.

If you asked regular people what the immigration policy was about....expecting some 3x5 inch card of information as a minimum....they'd mostly suggest that the Administration has no policy.

Afghanistan, Covid, jobs, etc?  Well....it's about the same.  

Maybe if we were on day 30 of the Administration....it'd make sense.  But we are nearing day 300 shortly. 

The only thing you can talk about?  This draft bill circulating around the House and Senate to spend $3-trillion.  Beyond that.....nothing.  

Covid Crap

 Some topic came up yesterday.  All roughout 2020....folks got hyped-up (mostly negative) about Covid.  By May of the year, it was a permanent top three topic for Americans.

So when the election ended, and Biden came into office, the expectation was that Covid as a major discussion item would 'end'.

Folks kinda sat there in January....thinking in roughly a hundred days....Covid would slide to a number five to number ten item, and maybe by the end of the year....be just a ten to twenty 'worry-problem'.

So here we are....Covid is still a top three problem, and it's discussed probably a dozen times a day in some work situations.  

Biden's whole 'house of cards'?  It lays there.  

There's hardly a press conference that goes by in the White House....where Covid isn't dragged up.  Luckily for two weeks, we had that mess with Afghanistan.....but eventually....even there, Covid came back.  Even with the admitting of UFOs....that barely lasted ten days, then Covid came back.

If I were Biden, I'd go to the controllers of the networks and major newspapers....begging them to just halt all reporting of Covid, and order the CDC to just go out and find something else to worry about.  

If we are still standing there in the middle of 2022.....chatting over Covid as a top three topic?  It only hurts Biden's goals.