January 6: Regrets, Trip to Wal-Mart, Broken Recliner

"There was a boy singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night.  I should like to have given him something:  that's all."

Scrooge says this to the Ghost of Christmas Past.  When I reread this passage just now, I was struck by the fact that Ebenezer Scrooge is a man full of regrets.  He lives in a world of lost opportunities.  Some of them are small:  not giving some money to a boy singing "God bless you, merry gentleman!"  Some of them are huge:  a lost love, the possibility of a family.  Above all, Scrooge learns how much he has missed in his life by not embracing the spirit of Christmas.

This morning, my wife and I are going grocery shopping at Wal-Mart.  I used to like my weekly foray into that den of consumer debauchery.  However, I have grown to detest it.  It's a necessary evil, like taxes and vegetables.  Thank God, our list is fairly short this week.  We might actually leave with a few dollars left in our bank account.  If there was a local store in the area that could provide the same prices as Wal-Mart, I would shop there exclusively.  Of course, that's not the way things work in an industrial, free-market society.  Scrooge understands this fact.  That's why he's as rich as he is.

The other bur under my saddle at the moment is the fact that my recliner is on its last legs.  Pretty soon, I'm going to have to take it out to the back pasture and shoot it.  It's the last piece of furniture we have that was half-way decent.  Now, we basically have a couch, a love seat, and a chair--all broken in one way or another.

Looks like this guy's recliner is broken, too

Perhaps if I'd lived my life like Scrooge, I would be rich at the moment.  If I hadn't given a shit about family or kids, I would be a tenured professor at a university.  Maybe I would have written three or four books, won some awards.  People would be contacting me for speaking engagements and readings, paying me thousands of dollars just to hear what I had to say.  I would have been living the dream.

On the flip side, I wouldn't have a supportive wife, a beautiful daughter, and a hysterically funny son.  I wouldn't have friends who I know would cut off their arms and sell them for me if they knew I needed help.  I wouldn't have all the frustrating love of my family.

I guess I'll take the trips to Wal-Mart and my shitty recliner.  I know Scrooge would, as well.  He learns his lesson about regrets.  Regrets suck.

Saint Marty, still striving to keep the Christmas Ghosts haunting.