I stood in line to pay $60 for the “hottest toy of the season”, Elmo Live.  I also went in search of the best price on a Playstation Portatble (PSP).  Then I bought the games, memory card and every other damn thing the sales kid told me I had to buy for it to work.  I argued for an item in a toy store…and won.  The smile on my face was quickly replaced with a blank stare as I realized my own mediocrity.

Some ultra-wealthy parents buy their kids cars, apartments, ponies or spa memberships.  And lots of ultra-granola parents buy their kids a tree to plant and a card memorializing the contribution made towards saving a gorilla in their name.  Not me.  I go straight for whatever I’m sold by the capitalist marketing machine.  Stir the economy stupid.  However there is one big difference in how I operated this year compared to the majority of American consumers: I paid cash.  There will not be one credit card debt in our household as a result of this holiday season.

So what if I bought my child portable attention deficit disorder (see PSP) when he didn’t even ask for it.  I know he will wear the paint off the buttons.  And if Logan only laughs at Elmo singing and dancing for 15 minutes well, that’s what I paid for.  And don’t get me started on what I spent on Amy.  She’s getting less gifts and for more money than either of the kids.  If it wasn’t made by a brand name designer or personalized she isn’t getting it.

Ya I’m a mediocre consumer drone and I don’t care.  I give the gifts people want without pretending that I’m giving them something they need and won’t give a damn about.  Christmas is about want, not need.  Don’t ask me what I “need”.  I’ll buy what I need.  You get me what I can’t or won’t buy for myself (my dad is pretty good about following this rule).  That’s the real spirit of Christmas, like it or not.  That is unless you are the purist of Christian and genuinely celebrate the season based on it’s original intent.  I don’t know too many of those people anymore.  That is, I really don’t know anyone who would display the same “spirit” of Christmas without giving or receiving gifts.  Do you?

Yes, it’s the saddest story I read today. Apparently CNN thought it necessary to reprint a Uwire sob story about the plight of auto industry children. They may have to find a way to actually pay for school. I couldn’t stop the tears. To think that retired auto workers may have to forgo lifetime salaries and free health care for themselves and their children… Well, I don’t know if I have the strength to hear any more of this tragic burden.

Oh wait, yes I do. Welcome to the world the rest of us live in. The world without pensions, free health care and other guaranteed retirement benefits thanks to a Union. Tell your sob story to my 62 year old mother who doesn’t plan to quit working any time soon. Your poor tear jerking article claims a school girls parents “logged more than 30 years for the auto giant”, GM. This school girl is 29 years old. Now that just makes me damned mad. My mothers been working for over 39 years non-stop often on night shifts for years at a time. Where’s her free health care? Where’s her lifetime salary at retirement? How come I didn’t get to go to college for free?

The F-150 is dead and gone, smoking transmission and all. Short sale to the rescue. Good riddance. Here’s something important to know: Gap insurance is useless unless you wreck your car. It doesn’t cover mechanical failures.

I’m not sorry to see the truck go. And I’m not certain we’re going to buy another car any time soon. We do live out in the middle of nowhere but so far it hasn’t been that much of an inconvenience. My sister is right down the street so if Amy is in a desperate situation she has transportation while I’m at work.

Part of this is a test. I got into a forum debate with some people on Digg last week regarding this very topic. I swore that some families need two cars and cited mine as an example. If we can do this anyone can. I’ll either save the money to pay cash for a car or we won’t buy another one. Since I’ve sworn off financing this my idea of practicing what I’m preaching. I won’t get a loan from a bank even though a dealer has pre-qualified me. At this very moment, in this economy I am one of the Treasury and banking systems enemy consumers. And I will not give in. It’s like my own little mini protest. The candle light vigil will be held at midnight.

Since I’m back on the subject of debt again, I now owe the movie gallery in Wendell and the one in Zebulon $35 each. Thanks to a lost copy of Spiderman 3 for Playstation and a Wall-E DVD that never made it home with Amy tonight I will pay them the equivalent of renting movies for 3 months. Add to this the $158 water bill I received for Oct. 22 to Nov. 22nd and you don’t need to think hard to understand why I’m not going to finance anything for a long time, if ever again.

When I opened this comically sinister water bill tonight I went under the house to see if we had a leak. No leaks but I did find the hose on the right side of the house watering the neighbors lawn for the last month. 498 gallons a day thanks to Connor and Jacob playing with the spicket. I think I set a Wake County consumption record.

You want to know the real irony of the DVD that Amy lost on the way home from the movie store. She went to get it with a free rental voucher.