I just went to Barnes and Nobles to pick up last minute Christmas presents for my girlfriend (I had something already--I didn't totally forget, just needed one more thing). It's crowded today, as I guess you might expect. I'm walking around in the games department looking at a million very tiny anthropomorphized food characters from Japanese shows I've never heard of, when I hear some woman announcing over the AP system that they're tracking Santa on the NORAD tracker, and that everyone should be aware that he is currently in Malaysia and has delivered 300,000 presents so far. And then she says "There are no delays--Santa is on time. The reindeer are doing fine. Everything is OK." I realized they were doing this every 15 minutes or so, every time reporting Santa in a different country (apparently he goes through Asia very quickly). At one point they said he stopped over in Thailand for some kind of muffled reason having to do with the reindeer (why stop over? Are there no Christians in Thailand--do they not get presents there?) And every single time the woman on the speaker ended her announcement with that same kind of remark "There are no delays. Everything is on schedule. Everything is OK."

I am pretty disgusted. Aside from the issue of reducing a mythological figure like Santa to a glorified corporate employee, like a UPS person, who has to deliver a certain number of packages in a specified amount of time, there's also, y'know, the fact that everything is really not OK. Not at all. Perhaps it's not fair of me to say that, as I have so far been OK....but no, I think we all have reasons to be concerned. The world appears to be going to hell in a handbasket--and that's true even if you only look at countries outside the United States. But, y'know, as long as Santa runs on schedule and delivers the requisite number of packages to the requisite number of children (but of course only to the ones whose parents can afford it...) Yes, I was buying presents too. But that particular sentence just strikes me as a little too similar to that old concern...at least he'll make sure the trains run on time.