Merry Christmas … but don’t expect a gift

ChatGPT

This Christmas I will have time to rediscover the spirit of the season.

I won’t be shopping.

Instead, I will be snug in my toasty house – until the madly spinning electric meter forces the thermostat down to 62 – as I tell myself that steaming mug of Sweet-N-Low flavored tap water is really hot chocolate. I will roll pennies. I will argue with cell phone “customer care representatives” about reducing my minutes. I will submit to the ignominy of lowering my online connection speed.

The short of it? I am afraid.

Which is odd, because I am not unemployed. In fact I have a full-time job, one that pays a respectable salary and comes with benefits. Until recently I was able to pay bills, add money to savings, subscribe to magazines, even take a trip when vacation time rolled around. I never carried a balance on my credit cards and I almost always paid cash for my purchases.

I still pay bills, add money to savings, and never carry a balance on my credit cards. But the magazine subscriptions are out, as are vacation trips. I have reduced my TV cable to the 24-channel bare bones option, and the landline is gone.

Worse, extravagant gifts are a thing of Christmas past – and when I say “extravagant” I mean the box set of Season 3 of “24.”

How did this happen? Well, it was all very subtle.

The perks and bonuses I had come to expect slowly dried up. They amounted to only $100 here, or $200 there. They were welcome but not essential to my existence, or so I thought.

The price of gasoline nudged ever higher, propelled at times by hurricanes or futures speculation or supply and demand. The price of food became ridiculous – five skimpy plastic bags in my shopping cart amounted to an $80 ordeal. Utilities crept higher, abetted by taxes, as did insurance in hurricane-ravaged Florida.

But it was the “little” things too. The cost of pressing a pair of pants jumped from $2 to $4. Soft drinks from a machine became $1. Text messages went from a nickel to a dime.

And that’s how it happened – in nickels and dimes – until I noticed the checking account balance drawing lower and lower no matter how much money I threw at it.

Now, things go undone, things that never went undone. The truck needs a new window-washer pump and the exhaust manifold is making that awful clacking sound that means another $500 infusion of TLC will be necessary to silence it. All those watermarks on the ceiling left by Hurricane Ivan will stay there awhile longer. My jeans still bear the red-and-white livery of Tommy Hilfiger, so popular in the early 2000s and so glaringly out of style now. Not a damn thing I can do about that, either.

But what I hate about this slow economic apocalypse is that I can’t buy cool Christmas presents for my family and friends. I am one of those bizarre people who actually enjoys shopping, wrapping gifts, placing them in boxes fresh from Office Max and shipping them across country. Now, I’m afraid to buy stamps for Christmas cards.

That’s not an unreasonable fear. My money market accounts are earning a whopping 2 percent interest. Since January my 401(k) has lost about 40 percent of its value. Predictions are that by the time I retire Social Security will be insolvent, and I have no guarantee a company pension will be forthcoming. Yet the cost of living will spiral higher and higher.

The government wants me to spend money. It’s almost a patriotic duty – revitalize the economy with my purchases of “High School Musical” digital cameras and Transformer educational toys. They may even send me a check to jump-start the process.

Well, if they do send me a check, I’ll tell you where it’s going: straight into my checking account to pay bills.

Meanwhile, I hope my family and friends will forgive the $5 used DVD from MovieStop, or the heartfelt but cost-effective note in the 24-for-a-dollar cards from Walmart.

Because while it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, it’s beginning to feel a lot like the Great Depression.

About the author:

Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”

Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.

As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.

Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .