I was walking through Wal-mart with my kids on the Sunday after Halloween. My daughter was getting the hunger cranks so I allowed my son to hang around the toy area until I finished feeding her.

I plopped myself down on a bench set up for display and started to feed her a bottle of milk.

Strains of an unfamiliar melody quietly wafted throughout the store, barely audible above the clatter of wobbly shopping cart wheels and the occasional “price check!” on a walkie-talkie.

I started feeding my daughter, and as she went into her feeding trance I went into my quiet place, something I normally do when boredom sets in. I must have gone into some kind of “zone” because after about 3 – 5 minutes the once quiet songs over the store PA were now clearly heard above the rest of the din. I soon found that, although I had never heard them before, I knew the words to the songs but the melodies were unfamiliar.

I furrowed my brow trying to decipher the song when it dawned on me. It was a stinking Christmas Song! The difference was that it sounded like any upbeat pop song you hear on the radio today. No jingles. No bells. No chestnuts roasting.

Talk about effective subliminal messaging. I wonder how many other people waltzed in that store that day and had a compulsion to “buy presents before the rush” weeks before Thanksgiving, and at full price too. I thought the Christmas shopping hell-train didn’t leave the station until the day after Thanksgiving. What a crock.

So, to the sleazy Psychology Majors who are using their skills for evil instead of good, You suck!