Moderately Confused by Jeff Stahler for December 11, 2023

Would ma’am prefer “Death Metal” instead?

That’s the second reason why I try to stay away from malls this time of year (after the parking hassles)

How are their prices?

What Christmas music playlist?

I used to work with a gal who would start playing Christmas music in November. By the time you’ve heard Holly, Jolly, Christmas six times a day, and Away in a Manger sung to a rap tune, for two months, the entire business has lost its charm.

I was working retail one year and the music got stuck on, of all things, the chipmunk Christmas song. After about the sixth time, I went looking for the manager and pleaded with him to fix it. He said he hadn’t noticed it.

I worked for Starbucks years and years ago. One year, they decided that they needed to maximize the number of Christmas songs each customer heard during their 5 minutes in store. All the songs on the playlist were 1.5 minutes long. The whole playlist was only 45 minutes. And there were at least 3 variations of Jingle Bells. I’m still traumatized.

I avoid certain restaurants because their music annoys me.

The only music I avoid is microtonal, because it sounds like everybody is out of tune

Shopping at a grocery store two days after Thanksgiving, I had to commiserate with the check-out clerk; not only was it immediately all Xmas all the time, but it was BAD, autotuned, 2nd-rate Xmas music all the time. I suggested they play 1 Xmas tune to 5 regular tunes, and she agreed that would be an improvement. I went back this week, and although it’s still all Xmas all the time, at least now they are playing originals and classics, and not autotune in earshot.

As good a reason as any.

that would eliminate pretty much every retailer here at this time of year…

This is a Chicago area classic winter song. It does not even mention Christmas. It is decades older than I am and yet it is a favourite sing for this time of year for me. https://www.youtube.Com/watch?v=FEe6KOWdbUs