It's beginning to look a lot like...wait.

Yesterday, while I was at work, my ears started to ring.

At first, I just waited for the sensation to pass, but I started to get nervous when the ringing persisted. I shook my head a little, and put my hands to my ears for a second, completely aware that I looked like I either had a tic, or I was arguing with the voices in my head. The ringing wasn’t that loud, but it wouldn’t stop.

Just when I had decided that Kelly Clarkson’s latest “pop sensation” had finally caused me to bleed directly from the eardrum, I walked past the front door of the store, and noticed a change in the ringing. Huh. It’s coming from outside.

I peeked my head out the door and looked in both directions. There, at the end of the strip mall, I saw it. My breathing stopped, and the blood drained from my face. It was horrifying. It was repulsive. It was worse than Kelly Clarkson. It was a Salvation Army bellringer.

Let’s be clear on one point before we continue: the Salvation Army? It does good work. I am not an ogre, a Scrooge, or a selfish bitch. I throw money into the red kettle every year, and often. I donate coats to the Warm Up drive, I “round up” my purchases at participating retail establishments, I give canned goods to the needy, and I think about volunteering at the Soup Kitchen until I realize that I’m not actually that good a person. I get into the giving season as much as the next upper middle class consumer with a guilt complex.

But, dude. November isn’t even half over, and the bellringers have started to station themselves at stores like freaking gargoyles. My problem with the bellringers is that not only do they get you coming and going, they do it at every public building in the country. You can’t go to the grocery store without hitting at least four of them before you get to the parking lot, and each time you pass them, they give you the “If you can afford to buy Nutty Buddies than you can put some moolah in my kettle” look. I’ve almost gotten used to the fact that “But I gave on the way in!” is not an appropriate response, and I take comfort in the fact that I only have to survive this for four weeks. I use the week before Thanksgiving to prep myself and save up laundry money, because I know I won’t have a single quarter in my pocket for the rest of the year.

It would appear that the invasion has come early.

It’s a disturbing trend that is echoed in the media, advertising, and retail industries. The Christmas season starts earlier and earlier every year; twinkle lights are in the same aisle as Halloween decorations at Target and television commercials with singing Santas and Coke-swigging polar bears air right alongside the “very special” Thanksgiving episode of insert-your-favorite-show-here. Everyone is in on it, and the conspiracy might go a little deeper than consumerism…

This morning started out like any other, with me stumbling groggily to the coffee-maker, throwing a bagel in the toaster and calculating how many shortcuts I could take to work in order to go back to bed for twenty minutes. With my coffee in one hand and my bagel in the other, I passed by the window, glanced outside, and stopped dead. It was snowing. Hard. Last week I had gone to work in a short sleeved t-shirt with no jacket, and today it was snowing. What the fuck? It’s like when I went to bed last night, the beautiful golden fall weather was in full swing, and when I woke up December had just bitch-slapped November into submission and grabbed the wheel of Mother Nature’s snowmobile.

While I finished my breakfast, I tried dutifully to find a silver lining to the fact that I was going to have to dig around in the trunk of my Jetta to find my snow scraper. I settled on being happy that I could do it while wearing sexy tall boots, my favorite wool peacoat, and very soft, extra long scarf. That would be good.

By the time I got to work this morning – late – my tall boots were cold, my coat was itchy, and my favorite scarf was all wet and clammy. I really, really missed fall. I went about opening the store, counting the register, vacuuming the carpet, turning on the radio, straightening the – OH MY GOD THEY’RE PLAYING CHRISTMAS MUSIC ON THE RADIO ALREADY! The lite rock radio station we are required to listen to all day long at work has switched over to 24-7 Christmas music. On November 15th. What the hell is going on? Basically, Omaha is grabbing me by the collar, throwing me against a wall, and whispering menacingly, “Thanksgiving is dead to us. You will get into the Christmas spirit, and you will do it today.”

For Christ’s sake.