Santa Claus officially kicked off the holiday season yesterday when, at the end of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, he smiled his smile and waved his wave. I was wide-eyed and smiling myself. And I will be for the next month.
That doesn’t mean I won’t complain, of course.
For example, as I went down Transit Road in Lockport Thursday afternoon, I took note of the stores that were open. Shame on them. I can understand a couple gas stations and a convenience store or two being open on Thanksgiving. But the dollar store? On Thanksgiving? Seriously? There’s no reason for it.
Personally, I think that gas stations and convenience stores should take turns being open on holidays … and charge at least double what they usually charge. There’s very little reason that anyone should ever need to purchase gas or groceries on a holiday. And if you do, it’s basically an emergency, right? So you get charged emergency prices. Just my opinion. I have lots of them.
Personally, I think that people that spend all their time complaining about government — especially local government — should be required to run for office. I hear all sorts of “great ideas” all the time while people are complaining about corruption or abuse or whatever. Sharing your idea publicly is great. Running for office would be even better. Quit whining and start doing.
Personally, I think that Republicans should stop fighting against Obamacare and start figuring out ways to make it better. Most would agree that it’s not a perfect system. But neither was what we had before. Rather than simply going back to the last imperfect system, it would be nice if Congress tried to come up with a more perfect one.
Personally, I think that we need to go back to driving school en masse and learn how to work a four-way stop. I know people are just trying to be nice when they wave you through. But I always come to a complete stop first. So if you just go when you’re supposed to, we’d all get through easier.
On a similar note: Personally, I think there are too many stop lights in Western New York. And yet, I don’t really like roundabouts. There was a town in Germany or something that took out all their stop lights, stop signs, etc. a few years ago. And they found that traffic accidents actually went down. I don’t understand why. But I’m all for it. I hate being the only car on the road and having to wait for a stop light.
Personally, I think that if you buy or rent a DVD or Blu-Ray disc you should not be forced to watch the previews if you don’t want to. Being made to watch advertising before you can watch the movie you paid for just seems unfair. That said, I often love the previews. But let me watch them when I want. Not before the movie I’m super excited about watching.
Personally, I’ll be watching practically nothing but Christmas movies for the next month. Because, you know, Santa waved at me yesterday and that was my cue.
Scott Leffler has opinions about everything. And because they’re opinions, they can’t be wrong. Follow him on Twitter @scottleffler.