To me, there’s no activity quite as nerve-wracking as Christmas shopping.
I don’t mean I don’t like to give gifts, but I dread the experience for weeks leading up to my inevitable trip(s) to the mall.
I worry how serious a thrashing my bank account can withstand. I worry how I’ll find something to fit everyone’s tastes. I worry how I’ll keep my sanity in the milelong line of cars entering Hamilton Place.
Then, the day arrives. After finally leaving I-75, I end up parking on the other side of the universe. Then, I have to play a game of parking lot “Frogger,” dodging drivers circling the lot like lethargic nursing sharks as they desperately try to find a way to avoid a couple hundred feet of exercise.
Assuming I survive the trek in, I then have to negotiate my way through a packed-out food court full of be-sweatered masses sucking down soda and curly fries.
And why do I negotiate that gauntlet? So I can join the crowds of less-hungry shoppers pawing through bins of discounted perfume, movies and slippers shaped like various rodents.
As if this weren’t bad enough, I rarely, if ever, have prepared a list of what to buy. As a result, I’ll wander aimlessly for hours, fending off attacks from kiosk owners brandishing head massagers and weaving around people with bewildered expressions that suggest they’ve woken from a bad dream into a worse one, only with bags and a lighter wallet.
The thought alone is usually enough to give a person an ulcer and always manages to put me in a bad mood.
Yet somehow, in the midst of the commercial frenzy, my training as an upstanding member of a consumerist society kicks in and I get in the swing of things. I stumble on the perfect gift for someone, which keeps me fueled through the next find. Eventually, I’m working the stores like a pro and starting to admit that giving really is in the spirit of the season.
For a while, I’m convinced I was overreacting to the earlier trials. Then, I realize the inevitable truth that leaving will involve all the earlier headaches, just in reverse order with an armful of potentially expensive gifts to carry and a stomach full of greasy chicken teriyaki and stromboli.
At that point, I realize how much I’ve spent and probably start to look like one of the aforementioned bewildered individuals.
Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t arrive empty-handed at Christmas for the world. I love seeing people’s excitement, if I manage to find something they like. I just wish there were an easier way to find the right gift without risking life, limb, sanity and financial security.
I’d love to say I had a magic-bullet gift that solved all those problems, but that simply doesn’t exist, unless you count cash.
My advice? If you have to go to the mall, suck it up. At least someone likes you enough to warrant a present. Load up an iPod with something relaxing like music made on Tibetan singing bowls or … I don’t know … Enya. If her string-laden warble pushes the wrong buttons, leave her off. Just use common sense and pass on the chicken teriyaki – trust me.