Bad Christmas music. ‘Wonderful Christmastime’ is the absolute worst Christmas song out there. @ me all you want, but don’t come with “oh no, this song (song that barely anyone knows and is never played) is waay worse”. Straight No Chaser’s ’12 Days of Christmas’ can kick rocks too. And anything Pentatonix. Call me a Grinch, they’re just not for me. Plus, because you’ve been listening to Christmas music since the day after Thanksgiving, when you hear Nat ‘King’ Cole sing “The Christmas Song” for the 83rd time this season, you’re about ready to smash every radio or speaker in sight.

The weather. Bone-chilling cold, freezing rain, snowstorms with mountains of snow that keep building and get all nasty colored. Gross. Seasonal depression is real and the brutal weather is certainly not helping. How am I supposed to be social when I can barely step outside of my apartment?

Looking at my bank account. The holidays are a tough time for the ol’ wallet. On top of your regular bills, you have to buy gifts for family and loved ones. There’s the occasional night out for dinner when you don’t feel like cooking. There’s the parties you’re invited to, where you basically have to bring a gift or bottle of wine or a 12-pack. Then there’s the nights where you go out for drinks with friends. And the numerous Ubers you take because you’re not trying to drink & drive and also because you don’t want to lose your spot at home. Not to mention the dumb “grabs” your office puts together that you hate being a part of, but can’t be that guy. Between all of this you’re about ready to make your New Years Resolution to not spend money. Oh, and thanks Bank of America, but I really don’t need another email telling me my account has fallen under $25 again.

Traffic. Sometimes traffic is tolerable in decent weather when you can roll the windows down, blast some music, etc. But when it’s 11 degrees and pitch black out at 5:19pm and you’re driving home from work, sitting in four lanes of stop and go traffic where all you can see is red tail lights and you notice that one little beat up 2002 Honda Civic weaving in and out of lanes without putting a blinker on. Like buddy, where do you think you’re going? There’s literally no where to go. You ain’t getting home any faster by doing this. And you’re starting to piss everyone off. So you finally get next to him and he wants to come into your lane, so you inch up closer to the car in front of you. And you do this for like 10 feet until he’s actually about to hit your car so you lay on your horn and throw your hands up like “wtf?” and he doesn’t even acknowledge this so you’re cursing like a sailor and he just keeps creeping and you can’t go around or anything because there’s cars in the lane next to you making sure you don’t come into their lane. So he finally gets in front of you and you flip him the bird and, again, he does nothing. He doesn’t wave thanks. He doesn’t even flip you back. And you’re still 25 minutes from home. Then ‘Wonderful Christmastime’ comes on so you turn the radio off completely. In silence now, you sit there and you think “man, I gotta get this road rage under control.”

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