Shopping is scary.

“The ornaments look pretty but they are pulling down the branches of the tree.”

I knew I was in for trouble whilst stuck on the interstate exit before even reaching the mall. I had been told that shopping the weekend before Christmas was a fool’s errand, but what the hay. I like shopping. I’m patient. Hell, I spent four years in the trenches at ODU standing in the registration and financial aid lines. I got heart.

Conversation remnants describing this weekends events:

CA: “The stores were RAVAGED”
LP: Seriously. Old Navy's women's department WAS A sock and A cell phone cover.
CA : “Kohl's looked like a New Orleans WalMart three days after the hurricane.”
CA: “We abandoned our cart and fled the scene
LP: I fled Lynnhaven like a crow flying away from a french frie on the interstate.”


I mean I had simple goals: Get in. Get out. Buy no presents that had a size or were of a rare nature to find and/or replace. DO NOT SHOP FOR YOURSELF. Do not equate present price to friendship value. Everyone’s equally deserving (or I simply will not have groceries for following year). Christmas is about selfless giving, and giving, and giving. Right?

There muggings at all major malls. Tiesha called to warn me not to go to Greenbrier, there was a woman down. To further her point “Leslie, I don’t think I coulda took down THIS woman. so it must’ve been SOME mugger, I’m not going back out after 5 and I’d advise you to do the same.” The mall that dreaded sundown.

I’m starting to think the war on Christmas has nothing to do with Santa, Jesus, or holiday greetings at all. The real war is debt and consumer commercialism and just trying to survive it without selling your kidney.