RUSHIN' THE SEASON

There’s a saying in the South:   Rushin’ the Season.   I know we’ve been praying and hoping for a break in the weather, and seem to have come out on the other side of that drastic heat.  The skies are blue with the poufiest clouds, the sun twinkles through the refreshed-by-the-rain trees and bushes, and it’s heavenly to BE out there in the sunshine when it’s in the early—morning sixties and right-now 72.

But Y’all, we went to Cracker Barrel for a late lunch on Sunday, and they just Take It Too Far.  I headed over to the little Clearance Corner while he registered, and looked over the little display of beach stuff and garden stuff and that one draggled pink rabbit probably still languishing from the February after-Easter sales.

I heard a little noise, and something bumped me in the back.   As I turned, I was face to face with an immense purple satin hat, atop  the stick of a cackly broom circling the floor like some zany Hogwarts roomba.    I could practically hear strains of The Sorcerer's Apprentice.

Broomba churkled some more, reversed, and headed off toward the canned apples and old-fashioned candy, as people parted before her heedless path, scooting their feet out of the way and doing that little batter's-tuck like when the pitcher zips one a little too close to his mid-section.

 

 Not my picture---this one's from Youtube.  Mine had a more interesting hat---an enormous purple number that was a cross between a smushed velvet rose and Miss Belle Watling's lampshade.

I ask you, folks---who would BUY that thing, and what IS it with the headlong plunge into the holidays, when we’re still wiping the Coppertone sweat from our brows and shaking sand out of the Samsonite?

There were whole displays of pumpkin-and-cat stuff, and great shelves of turkey-and-corn dishware and décor, as well as sweatshirts and jackets and sweaters in all the above.  

And worst of all, as we stood at the counter to pay, we could hear a muted Jingle Bells from the far corner shelves sneaking quite a few Santas and trees into the landscape.

I  hope that the demand for that purple-hatted broom is so great that they’ll all have been snatched up before our next visit.

(And I looked to see if there were a picture of the thing, and there’s only a video, posted in JULY).