Man Shopping

Pity me. I’ve been performing that most abhorrent of female duties: Man Shopping. No, not shopping in order to acquire men, as I’ve chronicled here, but shopping for the men in my life. And worse than that, even…today I shopped for stocking gifts.

Urk.

The women in my family have always adored giving and receiving stocking gifts, as long as they are for or from other women. The problem is that once we’ve filled each other’s stockings to the brim, we’ve felt obligated to do likewise for the men in our lives. And I don’t think I’ve ever known a single man who really likes small, inexpensive gifts. They don’t even seem to understand the whole small-gift-concept.

Still, my dad always dutifully made an effort to be appreciative each year:

 “Wow! A mini-moose-horned back scratcher! Now that sure is something.”

“All righty…just what I needed. Socks! Those will come in mighty handy.”

“Ha ha, yes siree…a polishing kit for bald heads! That sure is pretty funny.”

I’m not sure what was more painful—buying the stocking gifts, or watching him open them.

We must not be the only family who goes through this, because stores make an effort to set up displays of suggestions for men each year. There must be an enormous amount of pressure to get creative, because today I passed more than the usual wallets, desk games, cartoon-themed boxer shorts and creatively inscribed golf balls.

For the wife who is trying to combine good hygiene and a love of tools, there was a large and varied display of electric toothbrushes. Interesting to me were the racks and racks of pink flashlights and animal-themed bag clips, which surely must be high on every man’s “want” list.

The one exception to the shopping rule is my son. When he was a teenager, shopping was torture. Then a girlfriend entered the picture and everything changed. I don’t know how she does it, but if she likes it, he does, too. Once I took him shopping and brought his girlfriend along. While we loaded him up for his trip into the dressing room, I winked at her and handed him a short-sleeved button down shirt in aqua and white gingham that I’d had the wonderful luck to find brightening up the clearance rack. My son solemnly took it.

“Your girlfriend really likes this one,” I prompted. He only nodded, completely clueless as to why I was snorting and giggling.

I am so proud…not to mention relieved. He just might be getting a set of monkey-themed bag clips. I’ll just blame it on his girlfriend.

Happy holidays to you and yours!

• I know a guy who's addicted to brake fluid. He says he can stop any time.
• This girl said she recognized me from the vegetarian club, but I'd never met herbivore.
• I'm reading a book about anti-gravity. I just can't put it down.
• I did a theatrical performance about puns. It was a play on words.
• They told me I had type A blood, but it was a type-O.

~Puns lovingly passed down from my friend Jim’s dad

You Better Watch Out, Santa

I’ll say this for them: they are rather polite as yellow jackets go. Not like the seething ones I discovered while cleaning out the gutters last summer that taught me I can do an awesome jump from really high up a ladder, sort of like a stunt person. If the stunt person were a middle-aged Scooby Doo. This was just after I’d discovered that my hornet spray does not, in fact, shoot 20 feet like the label says, but instead sends out a dribble that goes “pffst,” and extends maybe five feet, tops. The stuff they should warn you not to spray willy-nilly directly over your head during rapid descent from a ladder.

Though my hair has remained yellow jacket free, my house has not. They started appearing whenever it was cold out, these drugged, sluggish insects congregating on the inside of the patio door. I have transplanted virtually dozens of them to the other side of that door thanks to my expert catch-and-release weapons that include an empty plastic sorbet container and an ad for bargain denture replacement.

I’d originally assumed the yellow jackets had made a nest somewhere within the passionflowers that frame the back door in the warmer months, and somehow they were squeezing in behind the screen. But after the vines died back, I was surprised to find not even a small hive.

It wasn’t until the door remained shut that it became clear what this Christmas season had brought down my chimney.

So this year, I have rediscovered my fireplace. No question there is more than one kind of comfort in a nice, cozy fire! Sorry, critters, but this Christmas Eve, I need to be sure not a creature is stirring…up a hornet’s nest.

Wishing you a calm, peaceful Christmas. The cootie-free kind.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof

The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.

As I drew in my head, and was turning around,

Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.

~”Twas the Night Before Christmas,” by Clement Clarke Moore

Ten Steps in the Zen of Christmas Shopping

1. Ohhhhmmmm…I am a calm shopper, a happy shopper. If others behave badly, I will refuse to allow them to dim my light. I will, instead, spread my light to them. I will be the very epitome of Christmas cheer. I will smile beatifically. I will radiate patience. I will not become upset or frenzied. I will enjoy the season.
2. Did that guy really just do that in traffic? What a s…OHHHMMM. I am calm. I accept the jerks of the world and only see them as an opportunity to spread my peaceful calm to them.
3. Ohhhhmmm. I welcome the chance to park so far away from the mall! I am healthy and happy, lucky to have the chance to walk this far. I love the exercise! I embrace this bracing wind! No problem that my nose is running and my hair is whipping into what looks like a fright wig! The cooling sleet will mash it down!
4. Ohhhmmmm. I rejoice in the fact that the line was not that little group of people standing by the cash register, but that long line weaving through the barricades like a chute in a slaughterhouse. It will give me a chance to relax and contemplate the joy of the season…as soon as the person behind me stops jabbing me with a coat hanger.
5. Ohhhhmmmmm. I welcome your cart in my path even though you clearly didn’t have the right-of-way in Cart Traffic. If we had been on a real road, I would be on the main thoroughfare and you just ran the stop sign. The Cart Police should pull you over and issue you a rather hefty citation. Why is there no such thing as Cart Police?! No need to say “excuse me” for almost propelling me into the Bacon Bowls display, either. Jerk.
6. O…ouch! Ramming your cart into the backs of my legs won’t make the line move any faster, MADAM, and having an injured body in the aisle with paramedics will likely slow things down…even though you are making it abundantly clear you will roll your cart right over my battered form like a speed bump. Ohhhhhmmmmmm.
7. I warmly embrace the ice on the road as a part of nature. I am communing with the ice! My car is a machine that gently flows with the ice, rather than…OH MY %#*!! Ohhhhmmmm…my shaking hands are calming. Just don’t even think about driving on my bumper right now, Car-Behind-Me! Yes, I know I’m creeping along. You would, too, if you’d just performed an Olympic-quality spin like I just did. Ohhhhhmylordpleasepleasegetmethere.
8. Ohhhh…seriously? Where in the WORLD is it acceptable to hog an entire aisle with your cart like that and then when I politely say, “excuse me,” reply “uh huh” and NOT BUDGE?!! And how am I supposed to respond to that? Wait until you decide you are indeed not legend and don’t live on this earth alone and never have to move over a few inches to share a public space with someone else? Or am I supposed to ram you?
9. Ohhhhmmm…my gosh, are you kidding me? There should really be a separate lane for slow walkers. And why do large families with newly walking babies see the Christmas season as a time to link hands and toddle along the entire path in a crowded shopping area like a slow-moving human barricade? CARRY THE BABY, JERK, AND TAKE IT FOR A STROLL AT HOME!
10. WHAT MAKES YOU THINK IT’S OKAY TO STOP AT THE BOTTOM OF THE ESCALATOR?!!! Does it not occur to you that an entire conveyer belt full of people is being propelled into a big frenzied blob of mayhem behind you?! OHHHH…L%#*! it. I’m going home to order online.

When the thief doubled back to try yanking and twisting the purse from my grasp, my arm simply flopped about and contorted like an angry eel, yet I still hung on. Finally, the thief gave up, and the disgusted onlookers recommenced their strolling. One gentleman and his companion sidestepped me like a pile of poo. ‘Her bag must contain something very valuable,’ he said in a tone that revealed he thought the opposite. ~ Bleachy-Haired Honky Bitch: Tales from a Bad Neighborhood by Hollis Gillespie

Take That in Your Traveling Tupperware and Stuff It

Hooray for this time of year, when in true holiday fashion I can take something reasonably healthy, like oat cereal, and corrupt it until it retains virtually none of its nutritive elements, and like a culinary alchemist, change it into tasty, cholesterol-and cheese-laden gold. Here are

10 Things I Feel Like After Too Much Holiday Food:

1. A humongous, slightly mobile appetizer made of cream cheese, semi-sweet chocolate morsels, bacon bits, Cheeze Whiz, mayonnaise, and mini-marshmallows on top
2. Gurgling cheese ball
3. Chocolate-engorged food tick
4. Over-moussed moose
5. Raw, overstuffed poultry
6. Ginormous, un-popped cheesecake zit
7. Big glob of extremely well-marbled, past-its-prime rib
8. Giant, bloated gravy truffle
9. Piggy-food-bank
10. Baked couch potato loaded with sour cream, bacon, chives, and Cheeze Whiz

Shouldn’t there be a list of acknowledgments for detractors, naysayers, underminers?  All the people who did not believe in you.  The people who got in your way or who tried to bring you down.  These people deserve to be acknowledged, too.  They should be on lists titled F*** You and Special F*** You and Very Special F*** You.  ~Cynthia Kaplan, Leave the Building Quicikly

Dastardly Dozen

On the twelfth day before Christmas, many hassles befell me:

Twelve people in line,

Eleven shirt boxes missing,

Ten shoppers griping,

Nine un-matching gift tags,

Eight packages that need mailing,

Seven ornaments shattered

Six inches of packing tape left

Five more inches of snow!

Four backordered gifts

Three mile parking lot walk

Two sore feet

And a light that still won’t light on the tree!

It’s been a particularly hectic season here. Isn’t it amazing that a holiday that’s about love and brotherhood can so quickly and ironically make you feel the opposite? So it’s all the more important to me this year to stop and remember all that’s wonderful—and you are one of them. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, and have a happy holiday!

Squidward: Who would want to celebrate a holiday where a fat man breaks into your house and leaves gifts?
Patrick: Like a genie!
~Spongebob Squarepants