You know what’s crazy? I’ll tel you what’s crazy.™
Holiday Shopping.
It should be a biblical experience filled with the good will and merriment of the season.
It should be children on Santa’s lap and little elfs handing out candy canes as you park your car. It should be Moses inscribing your Christmas boxes with the ten commandments.
Sadly it is never any of this.
Today I braved the cold and waded into the frozen pool of shopping and I didn’t like it. I felt like a hostage in a foreign land. I felt like a dirty American in Beirut, blindfolded and stinking of fear. I felt like I was being water boarded with perspiration squeezed out of Rosie O’Donnels sweat towel.
Yuk.
So there I am, moving through a retail outlet with five hundred
other people full of territorial angst. Normal Americans looked like retail Al Qaida? Soccer moms looked like credit crunching terrorists.
Damn is everyone Crazy?
People are fondling merchandise like a Penn State football coach at a junior high sleep over. People are tugging at shirts on disheveled racks, opening them up, looking at them with disgust, then leaving them wrinkled like a cat playing with yarn.
The racks are a mess and shoppers don’t care. Clothing is falling on the floor and being shoved in a wad on the display.
It’s so disrespectful. It’s as if these patrons are homeless people who have just crawled out of a refrigerator box.
As I move through the narrow aisle of clothes, I am smelling something. Is it body odor? No, I believe it’s the stench of fear from nervous shoppers, clutching their wallets, sensing past and present cash flow problems.
I look at a woman with 5 shirts tucked in her arms. She is mumbling like a transient at the bus station. Her head is tilted, lowered into her shoulder. Her hair is frazzled and shirts are covering most of her face. I can’t tell if she is crazy or talking into a cell phone stuck in her neck fat.
As I round the row of winter coats, I come across more scowls of more people trying to stretch a dollar like a third grader stretches chewing gum.
I’m in a store full of Shopping zombies.
As I move through the aisles, I am forced into a gauntlet of racks stuffed with winter coats. Negotiating the narrow passage is difficult due to over weight patrons holding arm fulls of items they are considering, but will never buy.
I am starved for air and space. It’s like I am aerobicizing inside a shoe box. People are sucking up all the oxygen making me light headed.
I need to get out of this Pandora’s box of retail hell.
I exit the building to a whoosh of relief. There is sunshine and a breeze on my face.
Momentary respite.
I quickly see the throng of disenchanted shoppers, mindlessly walking across the parking lot.
I half jog and get in my car. I feel like an anonymous perp is eye balling me, ready to pounce.
I begin to pull out. Immediately, 2 cars put on their blinkers ready to take my spot. It’s a frenzy, like piranhas nibbling flesh.
It’s a dicey proposition getting out of the parking lot. Cars are everywhere, driving fast, stopping suddenly to avoid hitting pedestrians.
I get to the intersection and its wall to wall metal. People are swarming, every lane filled. It woudl be safer to coat my belly with chum and swimming in shark infested waters.
I force my way into the gridlock. People don’t want to let me in, but they also don’t want me to dent their cars because I’m coming through.
Eventually the light turns green, but the traffic ahead is so congested, nothing moves. People are agitated so they honk. Honking gets people angry and more agitation leads to angrier driving. Suddenly it’s mayhem at 5 miles an hour. And it’s all happening with cars stacked on top of each other on one of the busiest boulevards in the city.
It takes 45 minutes to drive a route that normally takes 15. I get back to my house.
Man what a day. I decide to try on a shirt I bought. Damn it doesn’t fit.
Ah man, I have to go back to return it. I close my eyes and scream at the ceiling. Nobody seems to care.
I pop open a beer and throw the receipt on the counter.
Not going back today. I cherish freedom too much. Leave the shopping to the terrorists.
Ah that is crazy.