Women run around madly during the holidays, cooking and decorating everything in sight with goo-gaws and what-not’s, even Fido and Fluffy aren’t spared. There was a reason Martha Stewart was hated by so many women, she gave the appearance that she did everything herself and did it effortlessly. The alternative to the DIY frenzy is to grab a Martini, surrender your glue gun and load up on pre-made holiday decorations, candy and costumes at the local Big Box store.

I love Martha Stewart Living as much as the next crazy cat lady with a glue gun, but like many who gave up attempting to emulate the glue gun Goddess gave up trying to keep up and surrendered to mass market goods.

A search through the Sunday circular for coupons, found full-page ads featuring Waggin’ Train treats for your trick-or-treaters of the four-legged variety. A Purina Howl-oween ad encouraging pet parents to load up Fido’s plastic pumpkin with Purina brand pet treats imported from China.

I don’t know if Martha ever meant to be an environmental green icon with a glue gun, but she certainly succeeded in not only making most women feel utterly useless and incompetent, but she did do one good thing: Martha was the original chic up-cycler, the Queen of recycling. She taught American women how to make stuff themselves from shit around the house and in your garden.

When I see the garbage for sale, the cheap plastic, the trinkets, for sale I could cry. Not just because of the aesthetics, which truly are enough to give anyone a Hellish nightmare, but that nearly all of it, including the pet treats, are all imported from a country where labor is dirt cheap and corners can and usually are cut.

The health and safety of all Americans rests on a fragile footing. I shudder at the horror of innocent animals and children made sick year after year by tainted goods. Dangerous goods, poisonous goods.

Let’s face it, the FDA cannot protect us, the volume of imports is too immense and each year it grows. Like the Blob, it destroys everything in its path, pets, people, and ultimately – the planet.

The horror show is not just in movie theaters any more, it’s coming to a home near you; Another Walmart, another Target, another Dollar General. And that, my dears, truly is a freak show.