X-Must

Do you remember the first time you were strangely yelled at for referring to Christmas as "X-Mas"? I do, actually. I was working in a 7-11 on the late shift (11-7, if you must know) during my third year of college (so, twenty years ago) & there was a very tall, very cute, frizzy-haired hippie girl who'd come in to shoot the shit with me (& get free stuff, because she flirted with me), & her name was Monet. For reals! I think I even once asked to see her ID, & it was her real name.

I don't remember working there past Christmas of 1989, but at some point I surely must have been behind the counter when there was something - a plea for donations on a plastic container, a magazine, some sign from the management - that read "X-Mas," & Monet came in, like she did, late at night, quite drunk, wanting some soda from the soda fountain or something, & she saw the "X-Mas" sign & went ballistic. "They're trying to take the Christ out of Christmas!" she yelled at me. "I hate that!" & in that drunken way drunk folks have when they're pretty drunk, Monet expounded on her theory, surprising me because I just didn't know that tall, frizzy-haired, cute hippie girls who came into 7-11s on weekend nights as drunk as priests could be religious as well.

Did I tell her that the X really means Christ as it is based on the Greek spelling of the name? Nah. I didn't know that then. I didn't really care. Even though I was madly in love with the woman I was dating at the time, I appreciated cute chicks spending time with me, even under ridiculous circumstances.

Maybe I'll tell this story & others equally goofy tomorrow at 1pm on WMUL - 88.1 fm in Huntington - & later on of course archived on selfhelpradio.net - for my annual Christmas show, called (of course) a Very Self Help Radio Christmas. Do tune in. You know Monet won't be.