Nightmare Way Before Christmas

A little while back, I was in a Michael's craft store shopping for pipe-cleaners, glitter, fabric tack, and other accouterments to create a Halloween costume for our friend's annual masquerade. Y'know, Halloween, that momentarily-noticed-and-forgotten-in-a-minute holiday that falls right at the tail end of October. A good two whole months before reindeer start flying and stockings should get hung.

One front corner of the store is devoted to those little Dickensian village scenes -- miniature houses, general stores, churches, ice skating ponds, etc. -- that people purchase to assemble mini villages of some idyllic, never-existed yesteryear in their cookie-cutter, suburban tract houses or McMansions. Due to the apparent popularity of these things, they've expanded the offerings well beyond houses, libraries, and public parks. Now you can buy all the pieces-parts of your own little Coney Island-like boardwalk or a three-ring circus or a haunted Halloween Town or the elaborate Santa's Workshop and Christmas Village. And forget just static houses whose most elaborate feature is windows that light up. Now they have moving parts and sound effects. So the haunted carousel in Spooky Town spins around as a witch's voice cackles, "Hey, kiddies, want to ride for freeee?" Meanwhile, a few shelves away, a children's chorus sings "Jingle Bells" punctuated by a jolly Santa laugh.

What I want to know is what drugs are they feeding the staff in these stores to keep them so placid and courteous? Standing in line at the cash register for five minutes, I was ready to go postal listening to the witch's cackle compete with the Santa's chortle:

"Heeheeheeheehee!!"
"Ho! Ho! Ho!"
"Heeheeheeheehee!!"
"Ho! Ho! Ho!"

Aurgh!!! For the love of all that's sacred and holy, here's $20 for the pipe-cleaners! Just let me out of here!