Friday, February 04, 2005

Let's complain forcefully about Christmas

This has been bugging me for a bit, so here we go. Another Christmas. It's the 17th of December. The ritual begins and it's on the way to Walmart. So I leave my house and am on the road and what the heck is with all this traffic? Sheesh, don't you people have homes? So let's begin with the car in front of me. It's doing 15 under the limit. Come on loser, let's go. Oh, great. They have a bumper sticker. My kid is an honor student yada yada yada. Of course, this is obvious. Like cancer, intelligence is inherited and sometimes skips generations. Your kid obviously go the freaking IQ you didn't get. NOW GET THE F*** OUT OF MY F***ing WAY YOU @$^%$&*^%$b. After what seems like forever, we get to the part of the road that adds a lane each way. I give a very special Christmas greeting as I pass. "Dad" thinks I am waving. Like I said, your kid got all the brains. Finally, I can speed up. Oh rats, for about 10 seconds. Now what? This is the line to get into Walmart? Great. The uber-brain returns the Christmas greeting as he speeds by laughing. Finally, into the parking lot. Now, I don't care about walking. I usually find the first available slot in the back and park it there. This is easy as everyone else is an idiot looking for the close spots. Out of the car and off and running. Now I am already in a foul mood from the honor dad, but what I come across next takes the cake. This lady has her car in the center of the driving aisle, blocking traffic in both directions while she waits for someone to unload 3 freaking carts into their van and leave. She is over too far for any of the people (who are having coranary's right about now) to get by. No, she's just going to sit and wait for the next 10 minutes while the queue behind her gets longer and longer. Now, here's the kicker and why I am so proud of myself for not keying "Moron" into her passenger door. As I am walking by, right there, at her passenger door is an open slot that she could take. But no, she's not going there. She's too important. She's going to hold up 7 (at last count) cars for 8 stinking feet! Remember, they can't get by her, she's blocking everything. Someone honks. Well, several someones have been honking. Oh, isn't that nice, she put on her blinker. There. You see? Now that makes it all better. She's a polite a**hole. Please, get me out of here.

Finally into the front door. It took a while to get across the main drag in front. You see, no one ever pushes their carts to their cars anymore, well, except that woman who was unloading her 3. You see, they all drive them to the front and park where wifey pooh, or teenager or someone is waiting with the cart of goods. And they wonder why people go psycho with handguns. Give me an uzi... I'll clear the mess up...

So now it is time to shop. Grab one of the few remaining carts and off I go. Now Wal-mart is not just a shopping store. It's a community center. Really. I know people who will grab a cart and just push it through the store for hours, buying nothing. They run into people and chat. Push the cart a little more, look at this, look a that. You know. The ones who have decided that TV is just not worth watching. Now that in and of itself is not bad. But take several dozen or more of these people and put them in with a several hundred shopping and well, it gets crowded.

Fortunately for me, I am here for only a few gifts. My wife buys most Christmas stuff throughout the year, so when it's 7 days before, there is only, well, her gifts to buy. Hmm. Maybe I could take a lesson there. Off to the DVD/CD area for wife. Ok people move. I try to get in to find a CD, but now some lady is looking at every CD in the spot. Apparently she hasn't heard of "Alphabetical Order". She gives me a look for moving in her area. I glare back. Look lady. I am sure your kid loves Usher, whoever that lowlife is, but let's face reality: If she's your kid, the most you can hope for is that she will get the "do you want fries with that?" line correct before she turns 40. But hey, if not, then she should start practicing now for the "50 bucks and you can't unload in my mouth" line. Feed her lots of uncut hot dogs. She'll need to practice...

Finally, I have the CD. That took almost 20 minutes. Yeesh, at this pace, it'll be Christmas before I check out. No, it won't. Time to go home and just internet everything. Heck, I can go to Walmart.com and get what I want there. Off to the line. I have one item. One. Let's see what the express lines have. There's one with about 50 items. There's another with 20. Yeesh, can't anyone count? 20 minutes later, I am through the line and on my way home.

I can't imagine what the next week will be like at this place. I think if I need to come back, it'll be around 2 am.

C'ya.