Christmas Shopping

Bamboo shoved under my fingernails. Pungee sticks. Being caned. Having that dream where you get to school and then realize you're naked actually happen. Chinese water torture.

Above is a list of things I prefer to Christmas Shopping. First of all, I abhor crowds. Nature abhors a vacuum- as far as people are concerned, I LOVE a vacuum. The only thing worse than being in a huge crowd of people is being in a huge crowd of shopping people. So let's discuss shoppers.

They are inconsiderate. If you've ever seen the movie The Deer Hunter, where Christopher Walken's character becomes something less than human by being forced to participate in a game of Russian roulette, you might know what I'm talking about. You take a normal human being and put them in a mall where they may or may not find what they want, and they instantly devolve to something primal and horrifying.

If the troglodytic nature of Christmas shoppers were the only problem, however, it wouldn't be a big deal to go Christmas shopping. A little bit of faith and a whole lot of self-affirmation goes a long way toward helping one survive a Friday afternoon at the mall in December. The real problem is that not only are these people crazed, beastly shoppers during the Holidays- most of them are "mall-people" year round anyhow. Mall-people are the bane of my existence, the fly in my ointment, the Serpent in my Eden. It's become vogue to talk about how commercial Christmas has become, but does anyone really feel that strongly about it? I don't think so. Most of those people you hear chatting about the evils of commercialism around the water cooler in December spend hours every week the rest of the year at the mall happily plugging quarters into the machine.

Don't misunderstand me here. I do buy Christmas presents, because that's what's expected. Maybe I'm a hypocrite. I spend lots of time every Fall/Winter cruising the stores looking for just the right present for every one on my list. I do it with chills running down my spine and sweat forming on my brow. The sweat comes from nervousness about impressing people because I got just the right thing. The chills come from being forced to sweat about it. Is this the prize of our brutally fought for free-market economy? The ability to spend money has replaced the instinct to show real human sentiment?