Yum... a phone...

I finished decorating the tree, which always takes a surprisingly long time. It really shouldn’t surprise me anymore, seeing as I do this every year… but for some reason, the memory of the previous year tends to fade between tree trimmings. When I was a kid, decorating the Christmas tree was a family event – we all played a part in the eventual final creation. Dad would string the lights, which mom always said was the hardest part. (Years later, as I stared at a box of lights in the aisle of Wal-Mart and realized I would have to string them up on the tree myself, this long-held idea caused me some momentary panic. Until I got the lights home and strung them up on the tree and realized it really wasn’t so difficult, after all. I think mom’s delegation of light-hanging was a subtle way of saying, “I’m not gonna do all the work myself.”) After the lights were up, mom would drag out the boxes of ornaments, and she and Eric and I would hang them on the tree. I remember my absolute favorite ornament when I was kid – the one I HAD to hang myself – was an angel. When I think back on it, it was really a rather ugly little ornament. It was pretty flimsy – I think it was made of cardboard – and it was covered in orange feathers. It didn’t even make sense – why would an angel be covered in feathers? And if it IS going to be covered in feathers, why would they be ORANGE?? Regardless, for some reason I loved that thing when I was a kid… (I wonder whatever happened to that weird little orange cardboard feather-covered angel?)

And, following up on my denouncement of “toys” in yesterday’s post, I have to mention – I got a new phone! It’s pretty cool – it’s a Chocolate phone… or, more specifically, a Cherry Chocolate phone. And no, it’s not edible. Found THAT out the hard way… (that’s a joke… I really didn’t try to eat my phone…) I have no idea why Verizon calls this phone “Chocolate” – there’s nothing chocolately about it. I suppose it’s just some kind of marketing gimmick. Well, it sucked ME in, didn’t it? And that’s really sort of bizarre, when you think about it – I mean, obviously the Chocolate phone is NOT really made of chocolate, nor does it have anything whatsoever to DO with chocolate. It isn’t boxed with a Hershey bar, it doesn’t come with a coupon for truffles, it doesn’t accrue points for free hot chocolate at Starbucks with every call made… so why is it called Chocolate? And why would I instinctively WANT a Chocolate phone, knowing full well it’s simply a communication device, and NOT a yummy sweet dessert? Is my brain wired to crave chocolate in all forms, even if that form is non-edible? And does Verizon KNOW this? Apparently they do… sneaky Verizon marketing department…

All this talk of chocolate is making me hungry… and since it IS lunch time, I suppose I should go scour my cupboards for something to eat. But not the phone… can’t eat the phone… do NOT eat the phone…