Tags: Christmas | Czech | holidays

It is 2:30 in the afternoon, and I am weary of trudging across the winter wasteland that is Prague...

The worst I've feared has come to past; the fast pace life that is not Praha has ground down to the pace of frozen slush. I guess I should have noticed it way back in the end of December, but I was too taken up in the spirit of x-mas excess. Sure, I did find it odd that a lot of stores were closed for lunch, I mean when the f*ck am I supposed to shop on MY lunch break?

But ohh, did I get excited to learn that the shops were open until, is it true?; 8 and 9 p.m. (or 20.00 and 21.00, if you're in the military).

YES! I thought I'd hit heaven, as well as my ass on the pavement in the ice (please lord, don't let that be a frozen wiener dog turd I just landed on), and so I trekked on in to the stores where no one seemed sure what to buy until I looked at it, where lines were congealing like blood on OJ's socks, where impossibly slow and fat old people turned around 180 degrees in the middle of traffic to grab that last Abdominizer™.

Boy, I sure couldn't wait for those after x-mas clearance sales, that's when I would buy my explosives for New Year's Eve, the useless gadgets shipped all the way from the inscrutable east, but then the very next day, I roamed the empty deserted streets, nary a shop was open, not even the potraviny, not even the tabaks. ARGH! They've done it again, they've completely missed the point of x-mas: CLEARANCE SALES!

I tell you, if they truly want to be considered a western country, they gotta do more than drink Coca-Cola, smoke Marlboros and wear American flag striped clothing.

For starters, to build the consumer utopia that they are so dreaming of, they could pay people more than 12 times a years. Once a week is good, twice a month, acceptable, once a month? GET REAL! And then, the shop owners should consider that shoppers have jobs, and need to shop after work, maybe even developing a 5-9 shopping habit, then the profits would roll in big time.

Speaking of shopping, I tried to quit, I simply refused to stand in idiotic lines like some russkie for a loaf of bread. But I discovered something pretty amazing, and I don't think shop-owners know this; If you ignore your customers, THEY WILL STEAL! And did ya know you can weigh yourself an apple or two at most stores, get the sticker, then put about a dozen more in the bag, and the moronic clerk doesn't even look, or care, or look like they care!

Life is good. I'm not.