Shopping Madness

So we’re planning this Christmas party.  I mentioned that, right?  Since the party is planned for this Saturday, today was shopping day.  Every year I do this, make one big trip, after Thanksgiving, and every year I’m reminded of the one basic Christmas rule:

Never shop during the Christmas season.

Yeah, and that’s why you don’t throw Christmas parties after Thanksgiving.  I’ve found that the best party planning season is somewhere around mid June.  Maybe that’s because it’s warm and everybody else is somewhere else vacationing, or maybe it’s because it’s around the same time as my birthday, and somebody else is doing the shopping.  Either way, yay June!

The worst window of shopping hell? That’s Thanksgiving to New Years.  Those are days where you long to be a hibernating bear.

“Go fetch me a pic-a-nic basket, Boo Boo buddy…aw, never mind. Nap time.”

So we planned our party early in the season to avoid the sick St. Nick mania.  It’s a good plan. There was one flaw in our plan: I needed to stop at Costco.  My hope was that school is still in session, and most people are hard at work or squirreling away their nuts trying to afford the last push of the season. That would leave the Costco shopping aisles mostly empty. That was my Christmas wish.

Yeah, that was where I failed.

See it isn’t always the crowds that kill you.  It’s the quality of shopper that will do you in. I mean in the movie Alien, it wasn’t a Christmas infestation of Ewoks that Jub-Jubbed the Nostromo crew to death. No it was one bad day and one curious Christmas egg that killed all but the Ripley and the uncurious cat.

And in Costco, no one can hear you scream—cuz they’re all too mesmerized by the free samples, and I should of known.

The Costco greeter tried to warn me.

“Hello.”

That’s what she said. It wasn’t “hi!” or “How ya doing? Welcome to Costco!” It was “Hello.” Remember the movie Independence Day?  Remember the weirdo welcoming committee with hand-drawn placards leaping skyward at the top of the L.A. skyscraper waving “Hello?”

Yeah, this hello wasn’t like that hello.  This hello was the alien reply to that hello. The blast of blue fire aimed to destroy everything in its path, hello.  And it wasn’t just me. This greeter was greeting everyone with her deadly hellos like blasts from a laser pistol.

“This is Rob-five. I’m going in.”

Inside, the crowd was light. I pushed my cart down the main aisles. It didn’t feel like kayaking Costco rapids while navigating sample station rocks. It felt like, well pushing a cart: normal. I whistled through, filling my cart with necessities.

Costco lured me in deeper.

Lulled into a relaxed shopping experience, I stopped in the Christmas aisle. We needed wrapping paper and bows. There were a few people already in the aisle, making it difficult to navigate with a cart, so I moored my cart off a Justin Bieber kiosk. He looked like the kind of guy who would watch it for me.

After I entered the aisle, a man pulled his cart in behind me, not offering the same courtesy I offered by leaving my cart on the big aisle. This man blocked this aisle, then bent over, examining the differences between two uniform strands of door garland. 

Some of the shopping elves glared at him.  If they were undead, he’d be lunch. Not me, I wasn’t hungry. Besides. I still needed wrapping paper, and if worse did come to worse, I could escape out the other side of the aisle.

Other amblers grumbled and waddled to the open side. Most passed me, except one old lady.  She stopped. Apparently she needed wrapping paper too. She wobbled like a hardboiled egg, until her body turned enough to view the wrapping paper.  She was short. I was trying to be nice.  I looked over her shoulder as she sorted. I’d grab the one I liked after she left.

As she pulled each package of wrapping paper, she tried lifting each one to see the full length of the tube. It being Costco, each tube contained 1000 yards of wrapping paper, and weighed as much as the old lady did. 

She couldn’t lift them, so she’d wrap her arms around each one, bend at the knees and lift each roll out to the aisle. Then she’d spin them like great lumber logs, until she was satisfied that she didn’t want that roll. Then she’d drop it into the aisle, with a thunk.

This continued for half a box. Actually it continued for longer, but at half a box, I saw the roll I wanted out in the aisle, and knew I’d never get by if I waited any longer.  Looking back I could see the man in the suit still comparing carbon copy garland. He still wasn’t convinced one wasn’t better than the other one.  And he was darn sure he wouldn’t be fooled into buying a lesser strand this year.

So I kicked my roll out of the way as the woman spun with another wrapping log. She almost fell dragging her roll over mine. She didn’t realize my roll had moved, and the rolls hit mid woman-wobble.  She dropper her roll and glared at me as if it was my fault. 

Well okay, so it was my fault.  I can admit that, I said so. “Sorry.”

She shot me a glare and a “Hello.”

The store fell silent. People in the aisle started to turn.

I’ve seen these movies before. They don’t end well. I grabbed my roll, and ran for the other side of the aisle.  Navigating the aisle with my wrapping caber, I gained a new respect for the old woman.  This thing was heavier than I thought. I bounced like a pinball off a few carts and people. I looked back over my shoulder to make sure she wasn’t chasing me.  She wasn’t. She was still glaring at me though, and now other people in the aisle glared too. They now hated me worse than the guy still studying garland, and it looked like they were ready to tie me up with ribbon and run me out of Costco on a pole of wrapping paper. 

I hefted the roll onto my shoulder and I ran.  It was all good till the end of the aisle. There I rounded the corner but forgot that my width was now the same as a log of paper. I took the corner and took out a Christmas tree.   Sending ornaments everywhere. Those that didn’t shatter when the hit the floor rolled across the back aisle and across to the freezer section, where more people took notice.

The store began to murmur. Like a whisper of mist I could hear it raising: “Hello.”

Now it wasn’t just the people in the aisle who hated me; it was all of Costco—including the employees.  Pretending to see nothing, I made my way up the next aisle.  I see the Bieber kiosk at the end. He’s still smiling. I’m almost there.

I get there, and my cart is gone, along with the rest of my purchases.

“What the…”

I look around. People who aren’t crying carols over the spilt tree are lumbering towards me.  There’s a blockade of Costco employees coming at me from the front of the store.

“Hello.”

My cart is nowhere to be found and all I have is a Yule log of paper.  There’s no way I can take them all out.  It’s Christmas. It’s over. I mean maybe if hadn’t left the keg of Wesson in the cart, I could light it on fire. Then I’d have a chance. As it is it’s me against the world.  And the world coming up behind me has grabbled an economy sack of duck down and a bucket of pitch.

I drop my roll and raise my hands slowly. All I wanted to do was shop.

You’ll be interested to know that Costco does have a jail. It’s not as big as everything else in the store.  It’s more like a little closet.  It’s me and some guy who tried splitting the spaghetti cord into individual packets, cramped into the small space. The wifi here isn’t bad though; at least I can get a blog in while waiting for My Queen.  She’s on her way. I’ve had to explain that we’re getting another Christmas tree for the party. She wasn’t real happy about that. She was glad to know that we’ll have plenty of wrapping paper for the next 30 years though.