weak piles

i'm pretty shallow.
bam!
just like that.
a little open-handed truth slap.
i know, it's true.
but,
just because i often select literature by it's dust jacket,
that doesn't necessarily mean i'm therefore wrong about everything;
there are more than a few sinkholes, potholes,
and tectonic trenches in my personality profile, too.
secret depths of varying deep, dark, secret universal sentimentality.
like a jungle traps, ninjas.
it just looks like a small depression on the trail, all leafy an' that-
but then you set your flip-flops up on it,
and crash down into a dangerous, damnable, dirty dungeon,
high walled and filled with spikes, or maybe a totally bad-ass tiger.
duders, that's an analogy about my spirit.
maybe even my XI-mas spirit?
shallow or not,
some somethings should rock it on both sides
of the sparkle-magical viking longboat, y'heard?
like XI-mas present piles.
they're trickier than they look.
at face value, a small pile says you are a bad parent.
no kids? that jauns had better be expensive, then.
and not for nothing, that's still a cheesy opt-out move...
i mean,
what about stocking stuffers?
i doo-doo that.
materialistic? yep.
commercial holiday attitude? hell yeah.
epic berserker shopping master? absolutely.
likewise, sh!tty wrapping jobs indicate you're a mendicant,
or worse, you just throw money at treats without caring what they look like.
if it's really the thought that counts,
why do they make so many different kinds of so-dope sexy foil papers?
uh-huh, that's what i thought....
i'm on that all the way to eleven,
over-the-top dream christingmas-type big action-
from the 'i was listening that time you said you need this thing' gifts,
to the 'i know you so well i just knew you'd love this' gifts,
down to the 'you don't even know about how much hard-style hottness this thing has, but you're about to' ones,
all the way to the 'i just think you're special' jauns.
and what's the haps with the wraps?
minimal tape usage?
laser-level creases and corners?
complimentary color-coded contrast-printed paper?
you know what all that combines to make, yeah?
the perfect pile.
the. perfect. pile.
that's my everlasting holy grail arthurian quest.
gifts so dope, so thoughtful, so precisely paired,
so lavish, so luscious, so meticulous.
brutally delicate, barbarically sensitive, savagely sentimental.
so mouth-, eye-, and box-wateringly fresh i'm sure to un-grinch all the humbugs.
that's my word, ya'll.

you should maybe listen to your uncle albie:
i'm kind of a connoisseur of battle-bardly gratitude and generosity, right?
i'm just sayin';
some people give one truly meaningful, really sincere, heartfelt gift.
some folks bake cookies.
some folks just send a card.
...or worse;
the signed picture of their kids.
yeah.
the one they freak out about when you don't display it in your home.
creepy little faces, creepy little outfits.
awwwwwww.
just what i wanted on the mantle.
beady little beetle eyes unblinking at me while i sit by the fire.
totally not horrifying at all.
sometimes you get the card with a little biographical report thrown in,
an interfamily memo about why the other family is doper than yours.
maybe somebody gets you a candle...
(that person re-gifted that sh!t, and doesn't know you or even like you much)
i gets busy all up on a lot of that.
not the kid sh!t, though.
i mean it.
it's creepy.
nobody is obligated to care about kids that aren't theirs.
that's a rule.

i've got an enormous woody!
a wood pecker!! (like the ma in johnny dangerously?)
no,
i'm referring to the pileated woodpecker.
c'mon.
a big gnarly ironheaded redcap birdbrain.
he hangs out over here.
so do some of those ittle minky mini ones, too.
talk about a headbanger's ball.
and the reward for jamming his big beak into an icy expanse of tree?
frozen grublets.
jeez,
he's like a jackhammer excavator.
good thing the wood is sort of rotten.
(it muffles the speed metal kickdrum solo his face is making)
that's the soundtrack to t'n't this morning.
it's all really happening;
never quiet, never soft.....