Sounds of Christmas is torture
LIFE as a spotty young retail worker was a sweet gig.
We strolled through the aisles of the Cairns store straightening up boxes, loaded parcel pick-ups from the back dock and spun yarns with truckies dropping off never-ending deliveries of Barbie dolls and microwaves.
It was fairly widely known that most of the security cameras were just empty black cases — a bit of clever subterfuge to keep down the pilfering.
So if a handful of self-serve lollies went missing now and then, nobody was any the wiser. Sure, there were some dark times. The mystery defecator who took to pooing in the backpacks springs to mind, as does the time someone accidentally pressed the panic button by the staff water fountain and a platoon of cops turned up.
But for about 11 months of the year, it was smooth sailing. Then December rolled around. As anybody who has worked for a major department store knows, the lead-up to Christmas is a nightmare — and not just because of the psycho customers and their terrifying little darling spawn.
For some bizarre reason, big shops always stuck to the same eight-track Christmas compilation album with the likes of Rod Stewart and Tom Jones slaughtering classic carols on nauseous rotation.
Even better, it was blasted through tinny speakers into a massive tiled echo chamber to create a racket that could loosen a molar.
There was no escape — not even in the back dock, that refuge of retail work-shirkers everywhere — from Rod the Mod seductively crooning about roasting his supple chestnuts on an open fire.
Over. And. Over. Again. To the undiscerning customer hunting down stocking stuffers for little Billy and suede Y-fronts for Creepy Uncle Todd, it seems like good, harmless, festive fun.
But to the poor staff subjected to an agonising loop of Hark the Herald Angels Sing and the hair-raising I Saw Mummy Kissing Santa Claus, it is a full-on sensory assault.
Throughout history, sound has been weaponised for torture and to instil fear into the hearts of opposing armies.
The Bible tells the story of Joshua’s Israelite army managing to reduce the walls of Jericho to rubble with just the blaring racket of trumpets.
That’s what it feels like to be a retail worker at Christmas — Rod Stewart in full yuletide cheese-mode is the Israelite army and shelf-stackers’ sanity is Jericho.
The Aztec death whistle was a skull-shaped piece of pottery used by the pre-Spanish-conquest population of Mexico to terrifying effect.
Aztec armies, so the story goes, would march around blowing the whistles to create the sound of “1000 corpses screaming” — enough to put any rival forces off their breakfast.
The CIA’s fabled “torture playlist” including such ditties as the Bee Gees’ Stayin’ Alive, Christina Aguilera’s Dirrty and the theme song to that kids’ show with the drunken purple dinosaur, Barney and Friends.
Interrogators in American military prisons are said to honk the tunes at full volume on repeat to induce sleep deprivation.
Somehow, they seem to have overlooked Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas is You.
Don’t get me wrong, I love a good carol as much as the next masochist.
I can’t go past a bit of Good King Wenceslas without wondering how to spell his name, and The Ramones’ Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight Tonight) is a genuine stomper.
But that’s because I am now a decade or so removed from being subjected to sonic torture for a month straight every time the fat man in red rolled up.
Please, spare a thought for the shop workers over the next few weeks.
If they are acting rude or look like they want to tear somebody’s head off, just tune your ears towards the PA system and you might realise they have their reasons.
THROUGHOUT HISTORY, SOUND HAS BEEN WEAPONISED FOR TORTURE AND TO INSTIL FEAR INTO THE HEARTS OF OPPOSING ARMIES