My middle-aged Christmas list

Christmas memories are now but a Visa bill away. I didn’t want anything (at my age, to paraphrase Leonard Cohen, the only thing I want is to no longer ache in the places where I used to play), or really need anything (the above citation notwithstanding). My kids are healthy and happy, so too is my partner. There’s still food on the table and heat in the house, so I’m good, really.

Really.

…

Okay, now I’m in a parallel universe.

Here’s where I can ask for things I neither deserve nor are even close to hoping to get. They may come from the Seven Deadly Sins online catalogue or the “what-would-you-do-with-a-gazillion-dollars?” time-waster conversation on the road trip to the East Coast. Sadly, they come only in the dreams of a middle-aged guy like me.

• I want a Porsche 911 Turbo. Not to be seen in, but to able to drive. Through the Alps. To a chalet. Where Nicole Kidman is waiting for me. Or Susan Sarandon. Or both (hey, it’s my dream, okay?).
• I want big, flakey “happy snow” to drift from the sky starting next year around 6 p.m. on the 24th and lasting until just before sunrise so Christmas day in this part of Canada looks like Christmas day should look in Canada.
• I want all kids everywhere to have a happy childhood. That’s what it’s there for.
• I want to do away with all public PDA and mp3-use, so that people going anywhere will actually interact with the people they share the subway, train, sidewalk or elevator with and not only with the same group of ‘e-friends’ over and over and over and over again.
• I want a $7.50 hamburger to be a good $7.50 hamburger and a $15 hamburger to be a great $15 hamburger. If you pay a penny over $15 for a burg, you’re an idiot. And if you charge any more for a burg (I don’t care how much truffles cost), there is a special place in hell where all you’ll ever get is thrice-reheated Swanson dinners.
• I want, like, all those people who, like, use the word like, like … I don’t, like, know. (Is it, like, a conjunction, like?) Whatever it is, it’s truly annoying, and may be a tip off that you’ve suffered a brain injury that prevents you from stringing more than six words (that’s about 47 characters) end-to-end. (That brain injury? Remember the utility pole you walked into while unfriending someone?) Either stop it or see a specialist.
• I want a pony.
• I want all climate change deniers to have nothing to eat but leftover thrice-reheated Swanson dinners.
• I want all pseudo-news organizations and personalities who do nothing more than roil the uninformed with their brand of snake-oil misinformation to be laughed off the air, the web, the dead tree – anywhere their lichen exists. No, they shouldn’t be outlawed or regulated away, but laughed into oblivion. The sad fact is that they actually have audience(s) looking for salvation from, or someone to blame for, their lives. Has mankind learned nothing from the past?
• I want only one style of black socks and one style of white socks to exist in the world so matching them is easy.
• I want everyone to stop thinking they deserve something without earning it first.
• Oh, I really want that Porsche.