That's it. I have HAD it. I have had IT. I ventured out into the retail world once during this lousy holiday season and that was enough.
Spoiler: if you like Christmas and all of its accouterments of guilt, overspending, trite schlock, you're not going to want to keep reading. This means you, Mom.
I had to go to Target today. I did not want to, but a maelstrom of irritating and never-ending holiday obligations drove me there (in my car, which, according to the mechanic, needs new tires. NEW TIRES! At 15,000 miles! I am not going to elaborate on how this announcement might have shaped my mood for the Target visit, or how, when M reads this, he's going to go through the roof, but suffice to say: #%$(*&.)
So, where was I? Right. Target, in a downpour. I am on a mission. I need: small gifts for my children, some party food and alcohol, a seemingly mythical pre-rolled sugar cookie dough for S's school party, and a belt to wear with a very cute sweater dress for aforementioned party.
Pre-rolled sugar cookie dough? I have looked at every grocery store in the city, and in fact, have outsourced this job to my friends who belong to membership warehouse stores. No luck. In pre-cut Christmas shapes? Yes. Not so helpful for the synagogue preschool. Dough in the sausage tube? Yes. Dough in squares that melt to circles? Yes. Dough with reindeer? Yes. Flat dough? No effing way. Sausage tubes it is.
Belt for cute sweater dress? Dress, which is a size medium (small triumph) needs belt, for it hangs like a tent on me. I have already: cute boots, cute tights, cute jewelry. Belt? I want a skinny belt that loops around twice. Apparently, what I want is not in fashion. I settle for wide belt. In order for it to hang appropriately (fashionably?) around my waist, I must buy size...XL? Who in this city could possibly wear the small if I am wearing the XL, I ask myself. Aha, apparently no one. Belt rack is FULL of smalls and mediums. I take the last XL and skulk off.
Liquor? No problem. Love it, know it, want it. Party foods? Archer Farms has it under control.
Toy section: here is where things go horribly out of control. I am wandering through the boys aisles, wondering what-oh-what could my spoiled angels possibly need this holiday season. Do they need a build-it-yourself shoulder cannon? Nope. Do they need a $150 Lego reproduction of the Ewok-occupied Moon of Endorr? Not today. Do they need a $20 box to hold their $30 worth of Bakugan? Considering I have yet to figure out what, exactly, a Bakugan is--Nope.
In my despair, I stand at one of the end displays and ponder my next move. (board games that I will have to play if I purchase? The dread clothing aisle?) A man, who when standing on a reindeer feed bag measures 5'4" at most, wearing world's cheapest Santa outfit (the rayon beard is supershiny, the leatherette belt Velcro straining to cover his false belly, the "boot" shoe covers working about as well as they did on my kids' Halloween costumes), belting "Ho! HO HO!!" walks toward me with an elfin escort. I grab a scrap of paper out of my purse and pretend to be studying a list.
Santa walks up to me, and HOHOHOs into my personal space. I smile politely, feeling my grinchy-stone heart constrict another size too small, and avert my eyes. He offers me a candy cane. "No thanks, I have coffee." My green grinchiness or my stingy Scroogeness must have been seeping through my false smile, because he comes back with this gem:
"These are special. They have Santa dust in them and will give you the Christmas spirit."
OK. What I don't need is the stocking clerk from last night's midnight shift in a rented Santa suit pawning off cheap-ass mini candy canes loaded with Santa dust.
Annoyed, but not yet driven to total rudeness, my only response is, "I'm a grown up." I walk away.
Much like bars prepare food with extra salt to make you buy more beer, I suspect "Santa's Dust" contained some sort of impulse control inhibitor to make me want to buy the $150 Ewok Lego Extravaganza.
I DON'T LIKE CHRISTMAS.
Since when did this become a deficiency? A diagnosis? Christmas is a pale imitation of what it once was. I mean, talk about your devolution: Holy Night, Divine Baby, Santa, the general adoption of the word"holidays," and now the final insult of Stock Boy Larry and his individually wrapped candy canes?
This holiday has been foisted upon me since Halloween, I am burned out, sick of it, overwhelmed, uninterested, and over it. I want to buy my kids a couple of small, overpriced pieces of Made In China Crap and be done with it all.
Where's my freaking egg nog?
