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By the time this column begins to ring true for all of you, your Instagram feed will have been clogged up for days by pictures of people you hate dressed up in their parents living room.
You’ll be reminded of ex-girlfriends dressed to the nines with new significant others that you want to forget. Girls you only know on a very surface level will pop up with pictures of siblings getting ready to go to Midnight Mass. And then, of course, you’ll have girls on your feed like Bella Hadid and Emily Ratajkowski who you’ll absolutely, 1,000% never touch. Maybe a few of your buddies posted something corny as well, I don’t really know.
There are college bowl games on basically all day beginning on Christmas Eve, pitting teams that nobody outside of their respective state gives a flying fuck about. You still watch them, though, because outside of scrolling Instagram and double tapping pictures of people in front of fireplaces you’ve got nothing else to do. The days in between Christmas morning and New Year’s Eve are a slog like no other.
There’s an illusory feeling amongst us all that this will be the Christmas we buckle down and get some real quality time in with loved ones. But come day three or four of being constantly surrounded by your parents, siblings, and extended family, that idyllic sense of wonder that you had after leaving work the Friday before Christmas Eve will have been shattered. You’re ready to get back to work and out of your childhood bedroom.
Never has your 1,000 square foot unheated apartment (you can’t afford the heat to be on unless you’ve got a girl coming over) sounded better to you than when your mom asks you for the one-thousandth time in the past week how your dating life is.
Yes, it’s nice to be home for the holidays. It’s fantastic hanging out with your parents. But in the words of Andrew Clark, the self-righteous jock played by Emilio Estevez in The Breakfast Club “Everyone’s home life is unsatisfying. If it wasn’t, we’d live with our parents forever.”
The yearning to get back to civilization will consume your every pore as December 26th, 27th, and 28th slowly go by. I think we can all agree that by December 30th (at the latest) we’re all pretty ready to drive back to those shitty holes we call apartments and scrape by on a salary that our parents silently scoff at.
If you’re single, you’re probably going to a house party for NYE. Oh, what’s that? You’ve got a girlfriend? I guess you probably already ponied up two or three hundred bucks for tickets to a club (drinks not included, obviously) where you’ll no doubt be miserable for four hours.
You don’t like her friends or the guys that they have sex with, but you’ve got to keep up appearances or risk getting dumped. So you feign interest with the rest of the guys at the club or party you got dragged to and I applaud you for that. It’s noble, really. “You tell your friends it was nice to see them, but I hope I never see them again.” Didn’t you know The Chainsmokers are poets first, singers/songwriters second?
Whatever it is you’re doing in the next week and a half has got to be better than dragging ass into work, but let’s not pretend like sleeping in your parents’ house again and having next to nothing to do is all sunshine and rainbows. Yes, it’s nice to relax and it’s always usually a pleasure catching up with immediate and extended family members.
I hate to quote Twitter right now because that place is a hellscape like no other, but fuck 2017. And fuck the week in between Christmas day and NYE. It’s like trying to walk through mud up to your shins with ill-fitting shoes on..
Image via Unsplash
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jduda@grandex.co
Working from home at my parents’ house this week. All the comfort and free food but I have an excellent excuse to ask the family to please give me personal space. My mom is “just happy to have you home, sweetheart.” It’s a win-win.
Filling my time by spending it in the office not working. Also, can you people really not afford heat? What the hell.
Why do you think he’s been churning out articles?
If you have a girlfriend, why would you spend hundreds of dollars and 3-4 hours to be at a club that you don’t want to be at? Do people actually do this? Seems like an unfair relationship.
Yeah I was thinking the same thing. It seems like it should be reversed. House party with with the S.O. Club if you’re single (which still sounds awful).
Exactly. Or do what my girlfriend and I are doing – stay in, split a $70 bottle of wine I got from work as a Christmas present, watch TV and go to sleep shortly after midnight.
That sounds phenomenal. I would love to do that. I believe that would require having a girlfriend, though. *cries in the fetal position*
Downloaded a Gameboy emulator for my phone been crushing Pokemon red all morning. And yes I know I’m a nerd.
Last year, I downloaded Pokemon Yellow on my 3DS, and played it in Spanish. Probably makes me very much a Supernerd, but it’s such a great way to practice learning a language.
Emulators are great for Pokémon because you can up the speed and really cruise through the monotonous level grinding.
Fuck, that sounds like a good idea..
Which one? Serious question because I’ve been meaning to do this too
Gemboy is the one I’m using, it’s in the Google play store.
1,000 square foot apartment? Must be nice…
Damn Duda, even Christmas keeps you a cynical Debbie downer, who would’ve known!
I finally looked up what CSV Format is. Had no idea that was a thing.
Only using JSON? Shit must be nice YourNewBoss…
Wow, you must really hate your family or love your job if you are itching to get back to work this week.
If someone wants to donate some PTO I’ll happily spend the next week hanging with my fam, drinking booze out of their liquor cabinets, and binge watching Netflix.
The sad part where you live at home because you don’t make enough and still have to work all week. Open to any and all trades out of this shit existence.
The market for opioid sales is prettyyyyyy bullish right now if you know what I’m saying. Also, since you def will go to jail after awhile, just invest some drug profits into the private prison industry and pay yourself to be in prison with the dividends and just enjoy the free food, clothes, shelter, sex, and cable
I’m on PTO all week in my hometown at my parents house. I was awoken with a list of chores at 8am. I haven’t lived here in 3 years. I really wish I had to go into work this week because I will get scolded for drinking beer and watching tv/movies all week.
Lunch beers to get through this shit week of work. Every. Damn. Day.