So? Xmas Lights!

It is only November. The third week, to be more precise, of that moodily morose month. Inflicted again. Aesthetically afflicted once more; the tedious annual ritual imposed upon me by neighbourly congruity with a stranger. True, stranger neighbours could exist, but these two happen to irritate me beyond belief.

No sooner has Halloween twinkled by, then out come the coloured lights, the orange ones festooning their house and grounds hastily collected and put away for another year. The Halloween decorations, strings of orange blinkers, ghostly figures that sway in the breeze, skeletons, headstones, and a recorded eerie scream that resonates across the lawn when an intrepid, costumed child approaches, have had their three weeks of display. They've been dismantled in favour of an obviously-anticipated, more seasonal arrival.

And not just strings of lights twirled over their greenery, from shrubs to tall, spindly firs and spruces, but others outlining the house. Some, in fact, are never removed and remain hanging there, from the house eaves, throughout summer. Giving the house an unfortunate aspect of a perpetual snot-dripping roofline. A profusion of execrable waste and taste. Perfectly in synch with these peoples' values. The square of their lot strewn with lit-up cut-outs of Rudolph, Mother Goose, Santa, a gift-laden sled, and a creche.

These are not religious, church-attending people; they are barbarians. Witless dolts.

Living alongside them for the better part of fifteen years, we've exchanged those socially-obligatory surface greetings of casual acknowledgement, never anything deeper. Evidence, if any were needed, that they are incapable of conceiving meaningful thought and expression.

Between them, I'm finally convinced, they couldn't form a lucid, thoughtful observation betraying a glimmer of intelligence. They're born to consume. Nothing more, nothing less notable about them. They consume, therefore they exist.

Pathetic mummers in the theatre of life. Perfect fodder for the trite political promises sending the apathetic public to the polls.

Unfailingly, they conclude each of their declarations with an upward, affirmative-seeking thrust. Then scurry back into their comforting burrow.

Government employees, they work what was once quaintly termed 'bankers' hours'. He's a technician of some sort, she's a clerk. When they roll into their driveway their van radio thunders, the air around and about seems to descend into a moist despair.

How fanciful this all is, this wryly ironic descriptive of my neighbours. Look at me, turning into a seasonal grouch.

What's up, Steve? You could have worse neighbours. So yours grunt and mind their business. Think of the possibility of living beside raving psychopaths, or just plain anti-social thugs? These are law-abiding, simple-minded, unpolitical zombies, with no ideological axe to grind. They're irritating, it's true, but what harm do they do you? Don't like their public displays of seasonal enthusiasm, close your eyes!

Can't. They've covered all avenues of visual escape. The backyard too has been transformed by their juvenile yearnings for a living, incandescent fairyland all their very own. Front and back. I'm situated higher, so I look down - no pun, really, none at all intended - on them; impossible to escape those lights! Lights twinkling everywhere, front and back. If it's an early twilight, fog settling in at half-past three, say, on come those throbbing lights, puncturing the dim ambiance, the peaceful progress of descending night. Blighted by three solid months of artificial jollity. They won't come off until three weeks after the New Year has introduced itself.

Hippobottomous and her clueless mate think that's cool.

They're paying the bills, Steve.

I'm living with a tawdry display of gauche sociability.

Their choice in a free society, Steve. Now, what's really bothering you? Why the unease, the trepidation every time the phone rings? Surely you're not concerned about the results of routine medical tests? Be reasonable. Your symptoms, distressing as they are, could be related to a host of conditions, some fairly innocuous, readily treated....

Steve, you're not listening. C'mon, get yourself out of this funk, man.

Damn gut.

The kind of people who, confronted with a book, even a newspaper, would be genuinely puzzled about its purpose. Timid little anti-intellectuals whose sole interest is in public display of useless bought objects testifying that they "get it".

Bloody hell, there's the telephone. Tele-marketers.

The garish pause-timed and choreographed light displays entering my night world in a way that the people who display them would never dream of doing through civil social discourse.

What's that famous line again, "Cough and the world coughs with you, fart and you fart alone". Well, they fancy themselves coughing to a popular beat, but they're really farting in isolation, their reeking emanation smogging my world.

Not helping my chest pains one bit either, as it happens.

Their pernicious embrace of ignorance and rampant consumerism offends me mightily.

Who are you, Steve, to stand in judgement? Each to his own values, no?

No. Well, maybe yes. I'm not ... judging, merely observing. What? Can't I have an opinion!

Have your opinion. But do not condemn so harshly. They quite simply are what they are.

Why, why not? This is, after all, between me ... and you. And you still happen to be me.

Life is complex and disordered enough, Steve. Give it a rest.

Arrest my perceptions, my impulses, my thought-processes, my right to express myself, even to myself? Not bloody likely!

You're just giving yourself needless grief, heartburn.

Get lost, would you? And while you're at it, take that .. whatever it is you're waiting for - test diagnoses - with you. Don't slam the door, please.