Christmas Shopping - 2010

Despite having bought many things, sight unseen, online to give as Christmas gifts, I still have to go out there, to the dreaded mall, to pick things up.

My husband and I try to make Christmas more about tradition (having parties, eating tons of really good stuff and drinking brandy-laden eggnog) than about the materialism of gifts, but you have to give something, right?

So, yesterday, there we were, at the Mall, which was surprisingly less full than I've seen it at this time of year in the past.  If anyone needs a hands-on, real look at America's economy, go to a shopping center and see how easy it is to navigate through it.  Thanks Bush.  Thanks Obama.  Thanks Wall Street.  I really have enjoyed being shafted ( and I really want to use the F word instead) by all of you.  You, Obama!  Get your integrity back.  Stop being a mainline politician, which you did once and which was precisely what got you elected in the first place.  If you want to be a one-term president, just keep doing what you're doing.  You've become a sell out.  Maybe a one term sell-out is alright with you.  You did, afterall, make the history books.

Anyhow, my husband has about a five second tolerance for shopping, although he'll trudge along after me and not complain.  However, I can't get anything done when he's there.  His uncomplaining presence hovers over me like a huge black cloud, making it impossible for me to take the time to dig through the racks.

Digging through the racks.   Why can't we just have normal displays, why is everything jammed, lodged, packed, wedged, and basically ruined on too small display racks?  Harrod's in London is the only place I've ever been that knows how to run a department store.  Usually, by the time you find something that's actually not a piece of trash on one of the overloaded racks here in America, the item is ruined by so much hangar poking, manhandling, falling on the floor, etc.  Did you ever notice that Christmas time in America seems to be the season when all the store buyer's mistakes appear on the selling floor, in one last ditch attempt to prove they were a savvy business decision.  It is picking through these hideous items that drives me nuts.

Suggestion for retailers:  set up pot kiosks throughout your store, and offer people the opportunity to get stoned periodically.  You'd even sell the ugliest stuff in the universe that one of your buyers brought into your store, because everyone knows ingesting pot clouds judgment.  Anyone who came of age in the sixties only has to remember some of their late night hook-ups to know that is true.  All of you prudes will have to trust me on this one.

I really wish I had some valium, some xanax, or a good old fashioned quaalude to take before I venture out this afternoon in search of perfect gifts.  More importantly, all gifts should come with valium, xanax or quaaludes to make the recipient as happy to get it as you were to buy it.

Anyhow, I'm going.  Straight.  Alone.  Unarmed.  I am trying to have the right attitude and make this fun.  But a 'lude sure would benefit me on that one.