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‘Tis the Season for Standing in Line to Buy Overpriced Crap

Well, it’s started again. Another twelve months has gone by, and it’s time again for the annual holiday shopping nightmare. Somebody spike the egg nog, people — we’re gonna need booze to get through this one.

Now, before I go any further, I should probably admit that it’s really not all that bad. I should say that my wife handles buying most of the gifticles for our families, so I’ve really only got a handful of presents to come up with. And I should really allow that it’s not as aggravating as I think it’s going to be every year. Yes. Yes, I should.

I should do all of those things, but dammit, I’m not going to. It’s my party, and I’ll poop it if I want to. Should, schmould. Just because there isn’t much shopping to do doesn’t mean I’m gonna like it.

See, you’ve got to understand — I hate shopping. Hate it, loathe it, despise it with a white-hot passion. I can’t tell you why, exactly — maybe I was dropped on my head in a mall as a child, or maybe some now-forgotten loved one went out ‘shopping’ and never came back. Or maybe it’s because I have a penis. Could be any of those reasons.

But the fact remains — in my book, shopping blows big, hairy upchuck chunks.

(If I may mix nasty-ass metaphors. And I may. May, and just did. Woo.)

I think it’s the whole ‘sea of humanity’ thing. The only time I go to a shopping mall is when I absolutely have to go to a shopping mall. And that’s almost always when everyone else has to go to a mall, because for some godforsaken reason, we humans decided a long time ago to cram all of our gifty sorts of holidays into a span of a month or so. So no matter what you celebrate, or where you come from, or which bearded old man or dog-headed deity or little green men you decide to worship, when the weather gets cold, you’ve got to schlep out and buy shit for other people.

And there’s nothing wrong with that — hell, I’m as altruistic as the next cynical snarky smartass out there. Okay, poor choice of words. Let’s just say that I like giving out presents. I do. I’m a giver. Honest. Don’t give me that look, dammit — I give. I give!

But what genius came up with the idea of everybody giving each other trinkets all at the same time? Come on, spread that shit out a little — let’s move Christmas out of there, for starters. Who wants to lug six bags of shit through a foot and a half of snow to get ’em home, anyway? Let’s plop that thing down into June, or maybe July. And throw Chanukah — or Hanukkah, or however the hell I’m supposed to spell it this year — into the fall, or the spring. Spread the wealth, that’s all I’m saying.

Because now, the way things stand, the stores are fricking packed every shopping minute of every shopping day in the whole mother-shopping month of December. Hitting a mall after Thanksgiving is like trying to do the breaststroke through a fricking mosh pit. I’m all squinchy just thinking about it.

Which is why I’m trying — again, this year — to do all of my shopping online, and avoid the whole holiday train wreck altogether. I’ve been saying that since the turn of the millennium, and it never fricking works — I always end up making at least one ’emergency trip’ for last-second cards, or wrapping paper, or that thing I completely forgot that my wife wanted, but if I don’t get it, I can’t have sex for the next six months.

And so, this year it begins. I made my first online purchase today, and I have a couple more lined up to take care of. Will that be enough? Have I forgotten anything? Is it physically possible to avoid a shopping mall for the entire month of December? I don’t know, folks. All I can do is plan, and hope, and pray to bearded old guys and little green men and flowy-robed goddesses alike that I won’t have to go there. Again.

Have I mentioned how I hate shopping? Ugh. Now I’m all in a mood. Bah. Bah, and humbug, too. Now where’s that boozed-up egg nog? Somebody pass me a cup.