An Open Letter to "Baby" from "Baby, It's Cold Outside"

[grntuscarora]

Found on Facebook--Season's Greetings!

An Open Letter to "Baby" from "Baby, It's Cold Outside"
December 5, 2013 at 11:09pm


I feel thoroughly uncomfortable, on average, five times during the course of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside." And I hear it an estimated two hundred times every December. That, combined with drunk office holiday parties, REALLY drunk family functions, and never having change for the Salvation Army Santas means I feel thoroughly uncomfortable for the better part of Advent. This can’t go on.


Dear Baby,

Do you need a ride this year? I’m pretty far uptown, but I don’t mind making the trek if it would save you from the sinister, crooning hypnotist who lures you to his apartment every holiday season.

Do you know he’s going to call? Can you sense it as soon as the first flake descends? When the wind changes? Does the phone ring the same minute you glance out the window and think, “Ooooh, looks like snow.”

When does it start to feel like a bad idea? Is it when you step into his living room to find a meticulously preserved 1950s tableau of post-war Americana? He tells you he’s a “collector.” But everything’s just a little too tidy, isn’t it?

The formica dining table. The Art Deco drinks cabinet. The old-timey radio… what’s that playing... is it just… static? No. No, you hear it now…. bells. Jingle bells. How lovely….

That’s when you notice his perfectly-symmetrical haircut. Cufflinks. Who wears cufflinks anymore? Didn’t they invent buttons for that? No. Buttons are super old. Wait. You’re having trouble thinking clearly. Say, what’s in this drink?

And when did you learn to sing? It’s all happening so fast.

In a brief moment of clarity you mention that your parents are probably worried. THEY KNOW WHERE YOU ARE. People are expecting you! They’ll probably have called the police by now! He’ll never get away with —

Say, is that half-a-cigarette he’s handing you? Well maybe you can stay for a little.

Suddenly you look down — you don’t remember wearing a black chiffon ball gown and gloves. Where did the jade cigarette holder come from?

That look in his eyes. Hunger. Dean Martin never had that look.

“Gosh your lips look… delicious.”

FANGS. You forgot about the fangs. It’s all happening again. Just like last year. And the year before. And the year before that. Since the very dawn of terrible Christmas music when “The Christmas Song,” “Little Drummer Boy,” “Winter Wonderland,” and “Let it Snow” awakened a beast so terrible, so vexed that its hunger for kitsch will never die.

It returns every year in December, when the Western world collectively abandons good taste and discernment, to gorge itself on the mass-produced red and green schlock that spews from our merry little televisions, radios, and factories.

Then, just like the remnant tinsel from the branch of a sidewalk-forsaken Scotch pine, it quietly dances away some breezy January morning. Satiated until next Christmas. When your phone will ring once again…

So, like I said, call me if you need a ride.

Just make sure it’s not the night of my office party. ‘Cause I'll be schwasted dancing to the ‘NSYNC holiday album.

Sincerely,

A Friend

https://www.facebook.com/notes/kestrel-wolgemuth/an-open-letter-to-baby-from-baby-its-cold-outside/10152080215530730