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An Ex-Mas Story – Part 1


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I present to you – Part one of my short story "An Ex-Mas Story":

Jim Whelan never felt so miserable as he did around Christmas time. His feeling of malaise started with the melancholy ache of having to bid farewell to summer’s warmth for the gradual chill of autumn. He was given a small respite as he took comfort in the delightfully wicked celebration of Halloween. As the fake blood, cob webs and foam rubber body parts were packed away he soon felt the cold embrace of depression stealing in as silently and as ominously as a dense fog rolling over a harbor.

He could not quite pin-point exactly when the holidays put him in such a foul mood. He supposed it was a gradual transformation that took him from the young boy who genuinely looked forward to the ‘season of giving’ to the 29 year old who viewed the holiday season with a feeling of dread.

While growing up, Jim’s family did not have a lot of money. His father lost his job when the steel mills closed their doors for good, and he took to commercial roofing to support his young family. It was a lousy job that paid less than the mill, but more than the other offers he could get in a job market saturated with hundreds of guys just like him. The job took him away from home for weeks or months at a time; sleeping in motel rooms while his son’s childhood steadily slipped away. The only thing that was worse than being away from home was staying home. The start of winter meant the end of jobs for the roofing company. Eventually he would be laid off; having to survive on unemployment benefits and what little money Jim’s mother made from cutting hair. It was at the time when the Whelan family was at its leanest that the Christmas season kicked off.

Jim’s parents were barely making ends meet, trying desperately to scrounge up enough money to even have a Christmas. All the while, the popular holiday stories all told children that good behavior was magically rewarded by shiny new toys, while bad behavior resulted in being passed over or given lumps of coal in punishment. Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Clause, and he’s a big fat red bastard who puts those parents doing the best they can do to keep food in the pantry and a roof over their heads, into an unenviable position.

How does one explain to a child why even though they have been very good, Santa was only able to bring them a few inexpensive toys and some chocolate that tasted like wax. Meanwhile, the mean little boy down the block from the rude family with the nice car, gets a brand new bike? How does one comfort a child who is teased at school because most of his classmates got more gifts or more expensive gifts?

To the best of his memory, Jim’s parents never fought about money in front him. Nor did his brother have any recollection of seeing any bitterness. Looking back, he felt his parents did a wonderful job of juggling the expectations fueled by Christmas propaganda, and the reality of their check book. They did their best to make the time not about the presents, but about being with family and reflecting on the good things they did have in their lives.

As he grew older, he began to realize the struggles that his parents went through, and he was ashamed of his childhood greed. With this realization, Christmas became less of a holiday and into a disgusting “freak show” where the main attraction were poor souls forced to buy the love of their family through expensive trinkets.

Christmas tells these poor wretches that if they do not get their child the newest, best, and most expensive new distraction on the market, that they are horrible parents. It whispers in the ear of the husband that he will lose the admiration and respect of his spouse if he buys her anything less than the diamond from the exclusive jewelry galleria. The Spirit of Christmas is a grim specter, disguised in the robes of good cheer smiling in your face, telling you that you need to be jolly. All the while, smoothly cutting you to bleed you dry.

Jim was jostled from these grim thoughts, as a morbidly obese woman wearing sweatpants with the word “foxy” stretched across her immense bottom, pushed her way past him in the isle of the Dollar Mart. He had been standing in front of the bath soaps and lotions packaged as gift baskets for the holidays. Looking down into his hand basket, he considered the meager offerings it contained and sighed. A bad financial year had left him shopping for Christmas gifts at a ‘everything is a dollar’ store.

He was not quite sure what ‘body butter’ is, but he felt slightly dirty for considering it as a gift for his mother. He had the feeling that, at best, he could find a creative way to make some inexpensive, yet unique, gifts. At worst, everyone was going to get a holiday themed mug filled with a few assorted herbal tea bags and a handful of candy.

He knew his family did not expect anything from him for Christmas. In fact, they were hurting worse than he was. His grandparents were living off of their retirement funds, and the hit on Wall Street hurt them deeply. His mother could no longer work. His father quit his roofing job after his knees gave out, then took the necessary courses to get a job as a phlebotomist at the local hospital. Although not as strenuous as climbing ladders, he was only making a fraction of what the roofing job had paid.

Despite their repeated admonishments not to bother buying each other gifts, Jim still could not help but feel the need to get people something. As much as he hated Christmas and recognized the siren song of commercialism for what it was, a part of him was still captive to its call.

The only real dilemma he had faced this year was finding something for his girlfriend Stacey. While she demanded nothing of him, he still wanted to get her something nice. Stacey was a lovely girl, kind to a fault, and in Jim’s estimation, only had one major flaw. A flaw named Stan.

Stan was Stacey’s ex fiancé. The split had been amicable, both realizing that marriage was just not in the cards for them, and after the break up, had remained friends. Although Jim trusted Stacey, on some deep primal level, he hated their friendship. Instinctively Jim reacted to Stan the way a wolf will react to another male entering his territory: hackles up, ready to fight. For Stacey’s sake, he kept civil when this idiot man child not only refused to catch fire and die, but would not take the hint to simply go away. Yes, he trusted Stacey. But he did not trust Stan.

He knew he wasn’t going to find anything at the Dollar Mart for Stacey. He had saved up some money, and had bought two tickets to her favorite Broadway play that was coming to town soon. His was disappointed that the tickets in his price range were the second tier seats. He would have loved to get them closer, but it just was not in the budget.

After paying for his few presents, Jim headed out of the store and across the parking lot, dodging crazed drivers in their holiday shopping frenzy. Just as he was digging for his keys to unlock the door, his cell phone rang. He shifted his bags to his other arm and looked at the caller ID. Seeing Stacey’s number, he flipped open his phone while he proceeded to load his bags into the back seat.

“Hey Hon!” he said warmly. “How are you?”

“I’m fine baby. What are you up to?”

“Just doing a little shopping… what did you need?”

She hesitated, then said “Well, I want to ask you something, but I don’t want you to get upset…”

Jim could feel his blood pressure rising as an ice pick of fear stabbed his gut. He breathed deeply and tried to remain calm as he replied “Oh?”

She sighed and said “Yeah… Hon. I love you, I really do. So I don’t want you thinking that this is more than it is. Well, you know how I’ve been wanting to see that new play about the evil witch? Well, Stan just called and told me that he was buying me orchestra seats for the show. Hon… I want to take the tickets, but I don’t want you to be mad.”

“MAD?!” Jim said with disbelief. “My girlfriend just told me that her ex-fiancé wants to take her to a show where he spent per ticket, and I’m not supposed to get mad?! Come on, Stacey. You can’t expect me to believe that you are naive enough not to realize that this guy has ulterior motives.”

“But, Jim… I..”

He briskly cut her off “Look. You can accept the tickets if you want. Go ahead and accept a date with your ex. But don’t expect me to be around when you get home.”

He clicked off his cell phone and threw it down on the passenger street, seething with anger.

The bastard. The sneaky son of a bitch BASTARD. Here he was again, playing the nice guy, trying to slime his way back into her life, and no doubt back into her pretty little panties. Shaking with rage, he tried the mental exercises he had learned to use to manage his anger. When that did not work, he punched the headliner with his right hand with five quick powerful jabs, that he would later find left a dent in the thin roof of his car. Had he hit a support beam, he probably would have broken his hand. His knuckles burned, but he did not care. In some perverse way, he relished the pain. It did not dissipate his anger like he had hoped, but it did clear his head and channel his anger like the laser pinpoint of a rifle scope.

Turning his car around, he headed toward town, with the intent to hunt down Stan.

—- END OF PART 1 —-

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skepta private caller part 2

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This is a talk given during the Deen Over Dunya show in which brother Sayf ul-Haqq and Imam Abu Hanif Abdul Ali address the serious issue of those who make the proclamation “well only Allah can judge me” and use this as a way to excuse their sin and their right to be left alone to sin openly within our communities. The brothers are joined later in the show by Imam Na’im Ali and Imam Khalil Abdullahi who give their input and evidences as well. As well we get to hear the views and opinions of various callers. Tune into the Deen Over Dunya Show every evening Monday Through Saturday by visiting: www.blogtalkradio.com Also tune in Thursdays at 7:30 pm to Revolution Muslims weekly Halaqa dealing with current events on Paltalk in the room Masjid Sayyid Qutb.

I'm eager to hear your comments...

 

Harassing collection calls when you owe debt can be a nightmare. People tell me all the time how relentlessly the phone can ring when they owe money. There is a way to minimize this and actually stop it in most cases.

Adopting these techniques is also effective in stopping the horrible telemarketers that call you every evening offering windows, doors, lawn care and the like.

The first thing you must understand is most collection agencies, telemarketers and banks have adopted predictive dialing systems for making outbound calls. They are highly effective because each agent doesn’t have to manually dial a number each time they call out. Instead they will hire 300 collectors for every 1,000 lines that are dialed out. The computer actually dials more numbers then agents available to take the calls. This minimizes time spent dialing numbers and getting disconnected numbers or no answers.

The way it works is when the computerized dialer recognizes a human voice on the receiving end of the call, it immediately connects the call to the first available bill collector. Sometimes there is a delay in the connection because the collectors are busy wrapping up another call, which is why you can sometimes end up saying “hello” several times before you talk to a human.

Your first step you should take is ordering a call privacy feature from your phone company. This feature essentially prompts the inbound caller with a message like “the person you are trying to reach does not accept calls from unknown or private numbers, please state your name before we attempt to connect you”. The computer isn’t able to state a name so the call drops and the call is not connected. Your phone doesn’t even ring.

This feature is offered by almost every phone company and goes by names like: call privacy, anonymous caller ID or anonymous caller rejection. I have looked at several phone providers’ websites and the price seems to range from $2/m to $5/m.

The other preventative step you should take is a telezapper. I have tested this myself and they work well. This is a device you attach to your phone. Essentially when you or your answering machine pick up it detects a predictive dialer calling and it plays a tone that tricks the dialer into believing your telephone number is disconnected. The predictive dialer removes the number from its calling list to limit wasting its calling resources at a later date. It is a very effective tool for $39.99 on the telezapper website; I got mine off eBay for $15.

Since the majority of the debt collection calls you will receive are made by a predictive dialer, you will stop collectors and even telemarketers in their tracks. I am not advocating hiding from your payment obligations to your creditors, but adopting these tips will let you fight back and at least give you an opportunity to minimize the collection harassment while you work out a debt elimination strategy.

If you need help getting out of debt, take 15 minutes and get a free consultation from our debt settlement specialists by calling (866) 833-1992 or fill out the form on our website at http://www.totaldebtfreedom.ca to learn more about debt settlement.

 

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TO LISTEN TO THE SHOW IN IT’S ENTIRETY: www.blogtalkradio.com JayDub, IconMatthew1, christalkshowrule, and LLCoolJJJJabari talk with some very eccentric and crazy callers

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So after the call we went out to get some Mc Donald’s and headed to a pay phone very close to the dominos we were calling. We decided to start fresh and act like we never talked before but he knew it was the same people. So were going to give it a rest then call back on my cell another time because I can block my caller ID so he doesn’t call me back.

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Parental Monitoring

Parents should not stop monitoring their child’s website access after the initial findings. They should continue to monitor access on an ongoing basis. This would include any type of communications such as instant messaging and chat rooms.

Chat rooms have been the main source of where a child gets mixed up with a sexual predator. Parents should also keep a close eye on e-mail correspondence that your child gets. There can be e-mail messages that will hold a clue to what’s going on with them.

Most parents have Caller ID with their phone system. Using Caller ID will let parents know who is calling them. If you suspect a sex offender calling there for the child, you can have the phone number blocked by your phone company. This can help to fight off the unwanted advances of a pervert.

If pornographic information is going to a child under 18, the perpetrator could be breaking the law if they know the child is under age. If this happens, parents should report it to your service provider. They can also report it to the perpetrator’s service provider.

In addition to that, parents should notify their local and county law enforcement authorities. Some of them have special units that work specifically with these kinds of cases. Even with this, parents should still continue to watch their child’s website activity.

When you do contact law enforcement, parents should make sure that the evidence is stored on the computer. They will want to see this to prove the parents’ claim. Parents should also keep the computer turned off until further notice.

They should not make copies of any of the evidence on the computer. Law enforcement will probably want to take the computer and examine it themselves.

In addition to doing the above to protect their child, parents should also invest in child internet protection software. It can help filter and block out any sites that parents don’t want your child to see.

There are certain types that can pick up everything that the child does on the internet, including surfing websites and participating in chat rooms. Parents can also record and make a copy of their child’s chat room conversations.

It’s unfortunate that children nowadays can’t get online without some pervert trying to entice them. There are so many of them on these chat rooms, it’s difficult to determine who is who. Parents will definitely want to play a more dominant role in protecting their child from these weirdoes.

There is too much going on with the internet for a parent not to want to take precautions and check their child’s activities online.

Parents may feel guilty at first, but after they get involved, they start to feel better and more secure about what’s going on. Parents want their child to be safe. The last thing they want to hear about is that their child is involved in something illegal or immoral.

Parental control software has helped many parents save their children from potential dangers and catastrophes. There have been reports of parents finding out that their child was involved in drugs or stealing.

Or that their child claimed to have a boyfriend or girlfriend online. Parents finding this out early on get a chance to intervene and prevent further trouble for their child.

There have also been reports that children have engaged in sexual relationships with adults two and three times older than them. Using the parental control software has been a godsend for many parents. This is why so many parents are now getting on the bandwagon and taking care of business with their child.

The parents know that it’s their responsibility to keep their child safe. If it means snooping and spying on them, so be it. The child may be annoyed at first, but a while, they’ll be grateful.

Steve Cownley
http://allsortsofbits.comoj.com/

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Post a video response about some of yur pet peeves!! I love watching them. lol =p

What do you think? Please comment below to tell me.

This is a talk given during the Deen Over Dunya show in which brother Sayf ul-Haqq and Imam Abu Hanif Abdul Ali address the serious issue of those who make the proclamation “well only Allah can judge me” and use this as a way to excuse their sin and their right to be left alone to sin openly within our communities. The brothers are joined later in the show by Imam Na’im Ali and Imam Khalil Abdullahi who give their input and evidences as well. As well we get to hear the views and opinions of various callers. Tune into the Deen Over Dunya Show every evening Monday Through Saturday by visiting: www.blogtalkradio.com Also tune in Thursdays at 7:30 pm to Revolution Muslims weekly Halaqa dealing with current events on Paltalk in the room Masjid Sayyid Qutb.

Participate in the conversation by leaving your comment below.

Shot up by gangsters. Bert and Quinn made a guest appearance on Loveline on August 4,2008. Bert starts talking about 1 minute in. Part 1 of 9

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