The Christmas Shopping Strategic Manoever

I'm ALMOST done Christmas shopping. I will be ALMOST done Christmas shopping for the next four days, because I am never really DONE Christmas shopping until the malls close on the 24th and I can't buy any more stuff. (Even then, my friend Kelly has been known to stop by the 7-11 on her way home from Midnight Mass to pick up some peanuts and windshield wiper fluid for her dad.)

I've been very good this year, stayed on budget and I did not clock anyone, much as I felt like it. Over the years I've learned a few strategies to make it less likely that I end up on the news.

• Shop Early. The Mister and I started a strict "cash only" policy when it comes to Christmas presents when we first got married, and it's been very nice to not have any credit card bills coming in in January. But this means we have to buy a few presents every week, starting around Halloween. Sometimes that means people get Jack o' Lantern socks or goblin-themed wrapping paper, but that's what they get.
• Wear appropriate footwear. High heels and smooth soles are right out of the question for Christmas shopping; you need something that will let you bob and weave while moving at Mach I like a runningback at the Super Bowl. It helps if the floor is dry, too.
• Wear thin layers. For some reason, they keep the malls at a temperature that is appropriate for growing bananas. This might be comfortable for the staff, but when I am wearing a winter coat, boots, a scarf and a turtleneck, I can create my own weather system just walking around. Wearing polar fleece and shedding layers like a demented stripper is the only way to make it work.
• Avoid crowds. The older I get, the less tolerant I am of herds of lumbering wildebeest with shopping bags. I get to the mall when it opens, and, with any luck, am leaving within a half an hour. This sometimes means that I grab the first thing I see when I get in the door (hence the Jack o' Lantern socks) but anyone getting a present from me knows what they're getting into.
• Shop on-line first. How much do I love the internet? So much I would marry it, if I could. Being able to go on-line to see if they have it before I venture out is worth the price of admission alone. And I know you are wondering why I just don't do ALL of my shopping on-line, and that is because I've tried to, and although things like books are just fine to get without seeing them, the time that Barb the Receptionist bought a Ralph Lauren t-shirt in Large that barely fit a then-8-year-old Thing 2 has made me wary.
• Do not mutter under your breath. Sadly, I'm not as quiet as I think I am, and when I sigh and talk to myself, it only gets me in trouble. How was I supposed to know the lady in front of me has ears like a cat when I said "Oh, for God's sake, take your 10% off coupon and eat it instead of the chocolates, your ass certainly will be better off"?
• Don't take a cart. I get that stores want to be sure that they don't run out of stuff, but man, do they ever pack themselves tight. There was a Hallmark store I went into recently that had so many candles and ornaments and calendars and crap you couldn't actually get into the store, you had invade it, like Normandy. A cart at Costco is the height of folly. Those carts are big enough to fit in an entire live sheep and a birthday cake and tires anyway, but at Christmas time, the place is so crowded with people and stuff that I imagine if you got a cart, you'd get stuck back in the paper towel department and wouldn't be found until after New Years.
• Revise your plans. You thought you'd get a cashmere scarf for your brother, but they have acrylic ones on sale right by the door? Remember, people don't know what you planned on doing, they only know what they get.
• Wear earplugs. Because if I hear "Saaaaaaanta Claus is comin' to town!" one more time....

Bathing Suit Bliss

I took everyone's advice and sat myself down and ordered myself a bathing suit on-line. Why did I not think of this before? It is pure genius!! I ordered from Land's End on Sunday and my nifty new bathing suits came today, Wednesday! How happy am I? One especially pleases me; it's a tankini top and bathing shorts. It's fabulous....my dream of a knee length bathing suit gets closer every day. (You know those Victorian bathing suits that had sleeves and came down to your calves? I want those to come back like you would not believe. I would even wear the little hat.)

Trying on bathing suits in the kind and gentle environment of my very own bedroom is a gazillion times nicer than working up a lather of sweat and self-loathing in a florescent-lit changing room. (Why does the room get SO HOT when I try on bathing suits? It's like I develop my own weather system right there in withe me.)

I like the bathing suits well enough, as much as I can like any bathing suit. There's really only so much you can ask of a few meters of spandex and elastic, they are not going to change my Humpty Dumpty shape. I'm an egg-on-legs, no matter what I put on me.

So, thank you for all that suggested the mail-order strategy; I will never endure the Dementor-quality fitting rooms at Wal-Mart again.

Bathing Suit Blues.

There's not a woman alive who does not understand the soul-shredding aspects of bathing suit shopping, but let me tell you, I took it to a whole. new. level. today: I went bathing suit shopping at Wal-Mart. It's a wonder I got out of there alive.

Both Thing 1 and Thing 2 wanted to get new bathing suits, and it was their idea to try Wal-Mart first. As they browsed around and picked up stuff to try on, like a FOOL I took a look at the "grandma" bathing suit section and found a few items that might be acceptable for me. (There are two parts to the bathing suit department at any store, the "young" section and the "grandma" section. The "young section" is strictly for looks, not practicality. The bathing suits there are made of 14 square centimeters of fabric and the wearer needs to stand up at all times, preferably perfectly still. The "grandma" section has bathing suits made of huge swathes of black fabric, and can double as barbeque covers. The wearer can rope steers, pole vault and wrestle alligators without revealing one extra inch of doughy white flesh to the world. )

I tried on the suits, which is a task only for the stout of heart and strong of character at the best of times, and not to be undertaken after a rather large dinner of a crispy chicken Caesar salad wrap, fries and two diet Cokes. (The garlic in the Caesar salad wrap made me thirsty!) Or in a Wal-mart.

I will spare you the gruesome details, but holy schnickies, the lighting in those fitting rooms would make you swear off ever leaving the house again, if only as a public service. How did I not notice that I have varicose veins and barnacles?

I put all of my "grandma" selections back on the rack, and decided to try again another day, at another store. Preferably one that sells three-piece bathing suits, and lights their fitting rooms with candles.

An Open Letter....

Dear Lady on Your Cellphone in the Grocery Store Yesterday,

You really thought you could manage both, didn't you? You probably thought you were doing a perfectly passable job of manoevering your shopping cart and choosing items from the shelf and chatting away to your friend/sister/mother/husband. But let speak for the rest of the customers at No-Frills and state clearly and without reservation: YOU WERE NOT. YOU WERE A FREAKING TRAIN WRECK THAT MOVED ALL OVER THE STORE.

No one could escape you; no matter where we fled, there you were. Produce aisle? You were blocking the seedless green grapes that were on sale. Cereal aisle? You were perpendicular. Freezer department? No one could open a door without getting around you first. I nearly lost my shit altogether when I tried to get around you for the umpteenth time and you veered into the middle of the aisle and then stopped dead. Seriously, I nearly rammed right into you to teach you a lesson; you should count your lucky stars that you have any Achilles tendons left intact.

I kind of feel sorry for the person on the other end of the phone (although, really, that person had a choice to hang up or not, we had to put up with you no matter what.) Your conversation, while entirely audible to all and sundry, was less than scintillating. What the person you were talking to was going to do with the running commentary on your shopping trip is anybody's guess...."They are out of Nutrigrain bars again" will likely not count as one of the major high's of anyone's day.

Please take this in the nicest way possible: "Multitasking: It's not for everyone". Drive the cart, shop for your groceries, talk on the phone, just not all at once. Don't make me sever your Achille's tendons.

Love,
Mrs. Loudshoes.

How I Spent My Day, Another Day

The Women's Section of the 1975 Eaton's catalogue was bad enough, but you should get a load of the Men's Department....even worse, if you can believe it. I understand that it is entirely the nature of "style" that it changes drastically from decade to decade, but it's really hard to wrap one's head around the idea that any of this stuff EVER looked cool or hip or attractive or even less than laughable, as if that was that was the height of your ambitions. Also, note the collective fear of showing your ears...clearly a phobia rampant in the 70's....

Exhibit A:

You know why these are "no-iron" shirts? Because they are made out of abominated chemical compounds that melt when heated higher than room temperature.Those synthetic monstrosities just last and last and last. (The Mister had several of these shirts when we got married, and I made him throw them out. But not because they needed ironing!) Don't you love the patterns? The patterns that re-arrange your neurons and make your retinas twitch? Between you and me? The guy on the bottom left is wearing "guyliner".

Ahhh, the Leisure Suit. Nothing says "The 70's" quite like the Leisure Suit. And although they look sort of like very formal polyester pajamas, they look anything but comfortable. In the top picture, the two men look like they are doing a very awkward version of "The Chicken Dance", and the two in the big picture look somewhat happier,but as if they have just been caught doing something they shouldn't have. But what do you expect for $29.95?

Whoa, dude....dial down the pose, please. I know what's in those pants, but I don't want to know what's in those pants, got it?? Love the selection on the right: "Brain Spasm", "Clown School Showdown", and "Brown-tastic Fiesta!""The Toughest Denim We Sell" Really? Do a lot of Hell's Angels buy the denim jacket with the ginormous fuzzy, white collar? Who loves these guys? I do. I very much do. Where every other model in the catalogue looks like he could reasonably shoot for a spot in the "Village People", these two look like real men. Look how proud Earl there up in the left hand corner is. And so he should....apart from winning the Shriner's "Man of the Year" award, he also scored a modelling gig in the Eaton's catalogue.

"So, the other day, the guys and I were standing around in our underwear, like we do, and we got to talking about what would happen if we pulled our waistbands up EVEN HIGHER".

I'm sure the next generation will find our fashion choices equally criminal, but at least we fearlessly showed our ears.

How I Spent My Day

Back in the summer the girls and I went to a small town near here that has the, and I mean, THE, most wonderful junk store in the entire world. I could spend all day in that place; it is spectacular. And for 2 bucks, I got a 1975 Eaton's Catalogue, an impressive purchase, I assure you. (If you are not Canadian, you would not be familiar with the iconic Eaton's Catalogue, which was a fixture for many, many years in every household, like the Sears Catalogue in the States. I'm not sure if out-of-date Sears Catalogues were as favored for use as hockey goalie pads like the Eaton's catalogue was.

I spent hours with this catalogue, it is entirely fascinating.

The womens' fashions are, as expected for the mid-70's, uniformly horrible.

Faith and begorrah! That's a LOT of green. The heading is "Durable Knits", for those of you who like your clothing to withstand, I don't know, a rip-roaring St. Paddy's Day.

Those wobbly heads are not the fault of the catalogue, but merely the result of me learning how my scanner works. Anyway, despite her giddy smile and broken neck, I think the one in the middle is seriously in danger of losing her shit altogether, because she is on her way to a very special occasion wearing only a bedspread.

I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty sure I had the outfit in the middle, and was mighty chuffed about it too. That was a particularly omnipresent colour in the 70's, and a highly unflattering one it was, too. "Yes, let me have something in a dull brown, but put some orange in it....now, a bit of sludgy red, almost like dried blood.....maybe a bit of ear wax gold....perfect! Now, lets make lots of polyester out of it! Make sure it's durable!" The outfit on the right looks very, um...resistant to the human form. Almost like it was made out of cardboard and plaster of paris.

From the "Communist First Ladies Collection". Clearly, Raisa Gorbachev did her shopping out of the 1975 Eaton's Catalogue.

This is as racy as the Eatons' catalogue gets. The one on the left with the peach polyester nighty, has a decidedly "come-hither" look on her face, and the kneeling one either has a very short nighty on or has forgotten her pants. The one besider her must be the fastest one of the bunch, because she isn't even wearing sleeves, the hussy. I can just feel that slinky, slimy nylon.

And JUST when you think the Eaton's catalogue is heading straight down Sodom and Gommorah Boulevard at a hundred miles an hour, you turn the page and realize that all is well...

because this nightwear would firmly quash ANY ideas of sexiness the previous page might have stirred up. Honestly, these are 'The Birth Control You Wear'. Although, the lady second from the right might be wearing the equivilent of Clown Lingerie, I don't know. I do know that the fabric these are made of work up some hellish static electricity, and one would be warned to think long and hard before making contact with another human being. (Not that wearing one of these would bring that occurance about.)

There is much to be thankful for in the 21st century, not the least of which is the re-discovery of natural fibers, and flame-retardant fabric.

Christmas Shopping and Testosterone.

Christmas is in a few days, and judging by the parking lot at the mall, this has come as a MAJOR surprise to many, many people. It's the 25th of December, same as always, and yet it appears to have caught plenty unaware. Again. I can understand the grocery store being busy, there's some stuff you just can't get more than a couple of days before using. (Bean sprouts and raspberries? I'm looking at you.) But if you are buying a gift, you probably knew for the last 51 weeks that Christmas was coming.

I used to work in a record store, when I was in university. (The fact that it was a "record store" should give you some indication as to how long ago it was.) The store specialized in classical and jazz music, and it was a fabulous job.

We were open until 6:00 pm on Christmas Eve, and every year the most amazing phenomenon would happen: things would be fairly steady until about 1 or 2 pm, and then quiet down, but at 3:00 the place would completely fill up. With men. Desperate, serious, driven men, men who knew that they had left shopping for their wife's present WAY too late, and had to get something suitable in the next hour or face a year's worth of cold, quiet loathing. Again.

And we could sell those guys anything. They would buy whatever we told them was good. It seemed to me that every single one of those men somehow felt that the lateness of their purchase, and the guilt that ensued, could be most easily offset by throwing wads of cash at us...the more expensive the record, the better."See this Beethoven boxed set that sells for $300 that we've been trying to unload since March? She'd love it. In fact, you should get all of Mozart's operas, too."
What with it being Christmas and all, we did try to keep ourselves in check, and not take advantage of the sweaty, middle-aged guy waving his gold American Express card like a white flag. But on the other hand, most of them were begging for it: "Are you sure this is enough? Maybe I should get MORE!"

Occasionally, we would get a man who wanted to get a gift certificate for the woman in his life, and, since this was before computers, we would hand write the date on the top with a little note to ask the recipient to use it within the year. Almost every man asked if we could put the date a few days before, so that the recipient would not know that he bought it on Christmas Eve. Because if there's anything that says "I love you, Merry Christmas", it's a forged document designed to manipulate your life's partner into thinking you are a better person than you are.

At least these guys were out getting a present at all, even if it was at the 11th hour. I'm sure the 7-11 is pretty full after Midnight Mass with some poor slob who forgot to get something for his wife or girlfriend. A record, any record, is better than the Juicy Fruit and air fresheners that she's going to get.

Deck the Malls.

I'm pretty sure that if I'm ever involved in an international incident, or charged with assault causing bodily harm, it will involve Christmas shopping. Or, more specifically, Christmas shoppers.

The girls and I went to the mall on Sunday...I know, I know, a terrible idea for someone as adverse to crowds and noise as I. But the girls don't drive and I do, so to the mall it was. Also, Thing 2 wanted some ideas as to what to get me for Christmas; I certainly had no intention of thwarting that particular plan.

The most egregious Christmas shopping transgressions:

• Shouldn't the rules of the road apply when walking as well as driving? When you are operating a motor vehicle on a busy street, do you EVER stop in the middle of the road and just stay there? Or spin around and start driving in the complete opposite direction? Because people do that when they are walking in the mall all the time. It makes me want to bash right into them.
• Multiple Choice Question: The top of the escalator is the worst possible place to A) take out your cell phone and start texting, B) have a chat with eight of your best friends, C) stop and carefully take in your surroundings and have a long, slow thought about where to go next. Answer: ALL OF THE ABOVE!
• Retail store clerks are paid minimum wage, get one day off at Christmas and hate you. They are not about to perform a Christmas miracle and circumvent store policy and give their manager an opportunity to yell at them because they let you use an expired 10% off coupon. They just want you to go away. As do the rest of us waiting in line.
• Get off your cell phone when dealing with a cashier. It's abhorrently rude to keep chatting to your friend about "The Real Housewives of New Jersey" when dealing with another human being.
• See all those people patiently standing in an orderly fashion near the check out? It's called a "line" and you should join the end of it. They are not just abnormally motionless people with admirable serenity.
• A stroller is not a weapon.

Maybe they should hand this out in a pamplet at the mall. I know I'd appreciate it.

Self-Serve Checkouts

I have a confesson to make: I love the self-serve checkouts at the grocery store. From talking to other people, I think I supposed to loathe them; everyone else seems to. But I use them quite happily, and without incident, and they satisfy my super-secret desire to use the scanner all by myself.

Some people object to the self-serve checkouts because they are confusing and hard to use. Really? Because last time I looked, the gum-chewing, monosyllabic teenager who passes my stuff over the scanner does not have a PhD in geophysics. Now, I will allow that those scanners take a little bit of getting used to; the first few times I took a crack at them it was like something out of an episode of "I Love Lucy", but I figured them quickly enough, and use them all the time now.

I know some people also object to the self-serve checkouts because they take a job away from a person, and diminish the human interaction in the transaction. Now, I'm not thrilled to be doing someone out of a job, but, seriously? my shopping expedition has rarely been improved by the bored silence or surly grunts of the person checking out my groceries. Cashiers who have entire conversations with their co-workers (usually complaining about their breaks, or bosses or how little that cow over at the service desk does at closing time every night) while they are getting my order through piss me right off. If that cashier doesn't bother to even tell me what the total of my bill is, and just stands there waiting for me to look at the screen with her hand out, I am enraged beyond all reason.
Worse, is the cashier who feels the need to comment on my purchases....."oooh, someone's having a party!" (No, not really. But thanks for the reference to our less than ideal eating habits.)
"Wow, you sure must like a lot of salad!" (Actually, the idea that buying three heads of romaine for 4 people for one week is not really that crazy. And judging by the size of you, salads, and vegetables in general, is a concept you might want to investigate in the near future.) "What do you do with this?" (in reference to an avocado) (I slather it all over my naked body and dance around a campfire singing "Copacabana".)

Having said that, I do have some very favorite cashiers, who I will make a point of going to every time I see them working at my local Loblaws. There is Val, who I went to high school with, who aways welcomes me warmly and is good for a laugh. There is Speedy Meg, who can whip through those codes for the produce like nobody's business. (She might actually be working towards a PhD in geophysics.) And Cory, who is about as much fun as one can handle while standing in line at the checkout...he's outgoing, and cheerful and clearly loves talking to people
and is unfailingly good company. I will happily skip the self-checkout if any one of them are working, even if I'm only buying a pack of gum.

If you are at the grocery store with a couple of children, fewer bribes are more effective than "if you do that again you won't be able to scan stuff at the checkout". Honestly, the self-checkout is the best, most immediate reward for good behavior ever invented. My kids are 12 and 15 and they still beg to be able to do the work at the checkout. I heard a woman with a couple of preschoolers at the grocery store threaten to use the cashier if they didn't behave, and man, did that do the job. It was like they were little self-serve checkout addicts, and she said she'd withhold their hit.

Now, if I could just get a self-serve checkout at the passport office, or the American border, or doctor's office, that would be very sweet.

Mall and Winter

Yesterday was a bit of a lazy, leisurely Sunday; idyllic for me and the Mister, but a bit grating for the two girls. (I can remember as a kid being bored out of my skull on Sunday afternoons, and marvelling that my mother said it was her favorite day of the week....and all she did was read and nap!! My 9-year-old brain was boggled.) Both my daughters had some Christmas money burning a hole in their pockets, so I got myself dressed and (barely) presentable, and took them off to the mall. And not just any mall, the mall on the other side of town, which has almost exactly the same stores as the mall within smelling distance of our house, with a few notable exceptions. That is what makes it the Mall Of Choice.

A few things I noticed at the Biggest Mall in All The Land:

• There is a hell of a lot of walking at the mall. This mall in particular, which has a hellish layout and is the most discombobulating mall on earth, is mentally and physically taxing. I think, I think it is vaguely in a figure 8 with a couple of off-shooting loops, but in all the years I've been going there, I've never really figured out how to get around it without the help of signs and a Sherpa. And it seems that no matter what store we want to go to, it is at the exact opposite end of the mall and requires a snack before embarking. Big Liver Girl very nearly barfed right in the middle of that mall that last time she was there; she says from the flu, but I think it was dizzyness from trying to negotiate her way from the parking lot to the Gap.
• Store that cater to my children's age group are all very dark and very loud. I'm not sure what the strategy is behind "So! Lets have minimal lighting in here, so that you can barely make out if you are holding a wetsuit or a nightie, and then make sure the music is blaring so loudly that you can't even ask the person who works here! And also! Let's make sure our employees are all brain-damaged from the noise, and can't hear you anyway! It will be so cool!" Seriously, that marketing genius should have to spend time in their own stores as penance. I want to remind them that the person with the money is the cranky, middle-aged scowler in the corner, and if you want me to spend it in your store, you should not look at me like I'm Sadaam Hussein when I ask you to turn the music down.
• Believe me, I know what a nightmare it can be to work retail; I've done it. In fact, I think that every single person over the age of 15 should be required to work as a waiter or in retail.... just young Israelis are required to serve in the army. But honestly, while you are doing it, would it kill you to acknowledge my presence or even, heaven forbid, say hello or smile? Believe me, you would look much cooler and hipper if you didn't look like you had spent the last week in rehab, and now weren't sure if you could keep it up.
• My daughters spend a puzzling amount of time in a change room. I think next time I will bring a book to pass the time; I don't know what the hell they are doing in there for all that time, but they look considerably older when they come out.
• The correct outfit for a day at the mall is not what I was wearing. One should not dress as though one were going outside, even though one has to go outside to get to the mall. One should dress as though one were going inside. I was wearing a winter jacket, mittens, a turtleneck and winter boots. The mall's internal temperature is closer to the surface of the sun than Ontario in January, and I nearly fainted several times, from heat stroke.

Believe it or not, my two daughters have just asked if I would drop them off at the mall this evening (our local mall), and I will happily do so, as long as I don't have to go in.

Not Even If It's Not Flavored.

My favorite grocery store is Loblaws, mostly because they have nice, wide aisles, President's Choice products, Joe Fresh, and self-serve check-outs. (They also have a cashier, Gay Cory, who is about the funnest cashier I ever had. Seriously, he sounds just like Richard Simmons and is hilarious.)

Recently they have changed all sorts of stuff about our local Loblaws, and instead of it being a "Market" it is now a "Loblaw World Market", because, apparently, that "s" was just too cumbersome and unwieldy. Part of what they are trying to do with this store is increase the international foods, and make it so much more cosmopolitan. I'm all for it; any store that stocks lemongrass and enchilada sauce is A-Okay in my books.

However, in an attempt to be all things to all people, I think some egregious mistakes are going to be made. Exhibit A:

I'm trying very hard to imagine any scenario in which "Fruit Flavored Beef Jerky" is going to be the answer.

Deck the Malls

The annual Christmas shopping ordeal has to be gotten overwith, I've come to accept that. No matter how I think my way around it, that particular mountain has to be scaled, except that there's no downward slope on the other side, it's just a sheer cliff face that I fall off of on December 24th.

The Mister and I began our shopping last Monday, because A) we both have the day off and B) if I have to suffer, then so does he. (I've never understood the whole "the woman does the shopping for the entire family" thing....just because I won the X Chromosome lottery does not mean I like slogging through the bargain DVD bin at Best Buy any more than he does.)

A few things that caught my attention this time around:

• There is a lot of shit for sale out there. Seriously, who really thinks to themselves "The only real impediment to my happiness is an interactive tyrannosaurus rex "? or "God, there's no point in living if I don't have a Richard the Lionheart toilet seat cover."
• The combination of big winter coats and overstuffed stores is a recipe for disaster. Claire's was so jammed with crap that when I turned around to see what was behind me, I took out an entire display of "Hello Kitty" backpacks. (Just to tell you, if you've never been in "Claire's", and believe me, you should thank your lucky stars if that's the case, it is a store for girls that looks as though each and every Disney princess threw up in it. It is stocked to the rafters with hairbands, earrings, key fobs, jewelry cases, necklaces, purses, makeup and diaries, all of them in pink and purple and covered in glitter. It's craptastic.)
• There should be a special place in hell for people who walk through the mall and just stop. Especially if they are talking on a cell phone while doing it. Seriously, if you can't carry on a converstion while remaining in motion then maybe you should walk over to the side, where there isn't anyone else trying to get by you while plotting your imminent and violent death.
• When there is a line behind you a mile long, it's probably not a good idea to pull out that expired coupon for 10% off and insist on it's redemption to the pimply, minimum wage earning clerk who has the IQ of a carrot. The people in that line are going to snap.
• Caffeine, and plenty of it, is the drug that makes Christmas shopping at all bearable. I asked the Mister to go into the drive-through at Tim Hortons on our way to the mall, and he, the non-coffee drinker that he is, asked if I really needed to. I replied that I was deadly serious, and did he honestly want to go shopping me me unmedicated? He silently and wisely pulled into the drive-through. Regular and copious administrations of carbohydrates help too.
• Gift certificates are the greatest invention of modern man. Forget computers and indoor plumbing and internal combustion engines, the fact that I can just go in, get one of those little plastic cards and be done with my shopping makes me want to weep with gratitude.
• Wal-Mart is hell. The narrow aisles, the surly help (when you can find it), the unending Christmas music and the ever-present screaming toddlers makes Wal-Mart my Number One Place To Avoid In December. This is followed closely by Costco, Zellers and (shudder) Toys R Us. Truly, if they played rap music, served blue cheese and required me to wear high heels, it would be a perfect hell.

The only thing worse than Christmas shopping, I think, is Boxing Day shopping, and luckily, I don't have to do that.

Good News!

You will be very happy to hear the The Brick called today to tell us that our new coffee table is in, and we can pick it up anytime! Yay!

That would be the coffee table that we picked up yesterday, I imagine.

So, I guess that means we can go across town again, and get a coffee table to which we are not entitled, and sell it on Ebay or something. Perhaps there is a plague of delinquent furniture absconders roaming the land after all. I don't think we will do it; it's way on the other side of town, and I'd hate to have "Possession of Illegal Coffee Table" added to my digressions.

A Periodic Table.

The Mister and I went out to the other side of town to pick up our new coffee table today. We had found it, picked it out and paid for it before they casually mentioned that it wouldn't be delivered for two more months, but since we had lived without one for a couple of of months already, we figured we could live coffee-tableless for another while.
The Mister called about 3 weeks ago to inquire as to the coffee table's whereabouts, and they said that it would be another while and that they would call when it came it. (This is after having been paid for it 8 weeks earlier.) Finally last week we got the call that it had come in and we could pick it up.
As we drove out to get it today, the Mister remarked that he couldn't find the receipt, but since they clearly had a record of us having it, it shouldn't be too much of a problem. Of course, (and you know where this is going) we got all the way out there, and it was a problem. It seems that their computer system was down, and they were unable to find our invoice and that they wouldn't be able to let us have the table. (Because of the huge social problem of random people coming into the store and absconding with coffee tables to which they are not entitled, I suppose. A rampant bane on civilized society.)
So the Mister and I promptly asked for our money back. I believe our words were something to the effect of "you've got both our money and our table. We're not leaving here without at least one.".
And lo and behold, it suddenly became entirely possible to pick up a coffee table without a receipt! A Christmas miracle, it was! We drove around back and packed the coffee table into the van and came home and put it together, and we now have a place to put our coffee.
The end.

Oh, and the store? The Brick.
We're not going back.

Just When You Think It's Safe To Go Shopping Again.....

I was browsing around on the internet the other day and came across this clothing catalogue. (Really, I must go out and find myself another hobby, because it is becoming tragically apparent that I spend far too much time on the internet.) I am shopping impaired at the best of times, and would dearly love to be able to buy my clothes on line, but I'm afraid I would find myself in stuff like this.

These, I think, were left in the clubhouse by a 90-year-old golfer who forgot that he wore pants that day. In 1975.

Does anyone else hear the "I Dream Of Jeannie" theme song? "Yes, Master!"

I swear I saw Elton John wearing these once. Didn't they have a goldfish in the heel, though?

The next time I have to attend a "Sexy Medieval Monk" party, I know just what to wear.

These are exceptionally practical, don't you think? Perfect for running errands, shovelling the driveway and working the 8:30 show at Caesar's Palace. Which is totally my life.

You know, some days my bum just doesn't look big enough. These would be perfect for those days. And, in a pinch, we could have me bend over and show movies on my bum if the need arose.

These are spandex leggings with pretend stitching to make them look like jeans, for when I want my hips to look positively bovine.

See, my theory that clothing manufacturers are laughing at us is borne out. I am vindicated. And now, I will wear my pajamas until the madness ends.

Just What I Always Wanted!

Because the Canadian dollar is worth the same as the US dollar for the first time in living memory, I thought I might do a bit of my shopping online this year. Anything that lets me sit in front of the computer, instead of testing my meagre patience in the malls this time of year is a bonus to everyone, believe me.

Through one of my favourite blogs (http://www.tomatonation.com/) I found this gem of a catalogue. SkyMallShopping, which, I believe, is a magazine distributed on airplanes. For those of you who cannot bear to wait until you are once again on terra firma to buy a pair of Gollum-Smeagol bookends, this is the catalogue for you.

"You know what, kids? I've been thinking, and it seems to me that you don't get nearly enough refined white sugar and artificial colourings in your diet. How be we get a Cotton Candy maker and set it up in a corner of the family room? That way, it should be easy to keep your pancreas and liver revving at a full-gallop all the live long day! And don't worry about flossing, you shouldn't have to worry about having teeth at all soon."

I'm really not much into decorating. (We live in the All Beige House.), Almost all of our furniture started out being owned by somebody else, and I'm fine with that; we're really not picky about our decor. But I draw the line at this. I don't care how much bamboo in tasteful, Zen-inspired holders you put on this, or how you surround it with leather and Oriental rugs, this is still going to be the only thing in the room that anyone is ever going to talk about. I wonder what it looks like from the back.

Sadly, this is what happens to supermodels after they run out of cocaine and their careers wither and die. Believe it or not, this is a clock. The catalogue assures me that it says 12:39. Can you imagine trying to do the mental gymnastics necessary to navigate this baby every morning? I already live in a house full of people who have a cavalier attitude towards time management; I can't begin to imagine what kind of mayhem would ensue with this on the kitchen wall.

This is called "The Litter Robot". I will automatically clean up the cat turds and replenish the litter, seconds after your cat has exited the passenger area. Now, as much as our Toby loves a
good box, I can't see me persuading him to get anywhere near this thing. Toby regards the vacuum cleaner as a "Thinly Disguised Cat Dismembering Toy of Satan", and treats it with the unholy revulsion it richly deserves. I really don't think he is going to be fooled by this New Insidous Weapon of Feline Slaughter.

Okay, this thing I could actually see myself buying, if only to see the looks of "WTF" on my friends and family as they catch it coyly peeking out from behind the lilac bushes. No charming, little gnomes or delicate fairies for the Loudshoes family, we're way too hardcore for that. Our garden can only be improved by the addition of a Big Foot statue.

Happy shopping! Oh, and to my friends and family who I do buy presents for, you didn't see this.

A Good Time at the Grocery Store

From what I've written here in the past, you can be forgiven for thinking that I spend most of my waking hours at the grocery store. I don't; I just spend more time pondering the grocery store than most people would.

I went at around 6:00 tonight, a Sunday, and it was hella busy. Why aren't all these people at home in the cozy embrace of their families having a Norman Rockwellian Sunday dinner? Mosty because the population was largely made up of university students, and their families are long forgotten.

Whoever is in charge of the music at Loblaws could be my new best friend, because it rocked tonight....they played a goodly portion of the soundtrack from my teen years (The Cars, some Neil Young and even some Elvis Costello) My 20's was nicely represented by Michael Jackson when he was still good and before he got weird, the Clash and some Ramones, and then they played some Dave Matthews (who, if you didn't already know, is my "Rock and Roll Boyfriend".)
I hardly wanted to leave.

I spent a while mentallly listing the "Things I Thought I'd Never In A Million Years Buy":
1 Velveeta: plastic "cheese" which comes in a colour which nature never intended. I'm not from France and I'm not picky about my cheese, but no one is more surprised than me that I actually buy this stuff. I'm ashamed to say that I prefer the sauce this makes with broccoli than anything I've made with real cheddar.
2. Hamburger Helper. "Full of salt! And chemicals! and it's processed cheese food! I can make better crap than this myself!! " Then I had children, and so many deeply held beliefs fell by the wayside. What can I say? Things change.
3. Soy Milk Does anything say "healthy stuff is disgusting" quite like soy milk? Even the name "soy milk" indicates "there is nothing remotely fun about this whatsoever" But.....it's not so bad. Dare I say, I even LIKE it on oatmeal?
4. Melba Toast Much like soy milk, melba toast has all the trappings of dreary, dietary correctness, unmitigated by salt, fat or sugar. Having said that, I sometimes like it's boring, neutrality with cheese and soup.

There were two incredibly obnoxious around-twelve-years-old boys who were inflicting themselves on all and sundry at the same time I was there. As they careened the grocery cart around the produce section, slamming into displays and narrowly missing other shoppers, their mother (?) occasionally would waft a vague "cut it out" in their direction. This had no effect whatsoever on the two career criminals she was raising. By the time I got to the check out, the boys had managed to engage a second cart, whose main purpose, as far as I could see, was to present an obstacle for the first cart to overcome. This was accompanied by loud whoo-hoooing and trash talking and about as annoying as anything I've ever seen. I actually re-routed myself several times in order to avoid them. When I went out to the parking lot, it came to pass that the two young men had managed to crash BOTH carts into the side of their large, black SUV, leaving noticable dents in both the front and back doors. I cannot begin to tell you how satisfying in the extreme this was to me.

Shopping = Hell

Once a year we attend a big hairdressing event in Montreal, and once a year, I have to find something to wear to it. To be honest, I don't try very hard; I wouldn't stand out in this crowd if I dressed up in a clown costume and shot fireworks out of my bum. Hairdressers en masse are hardly a reticent bunch, and a thousand drunken hairdressers? Let's just say the competition for attention is intense. But I still would like to look presentable, if not actually nice, and herein lies my problem.

It is always somewhat difficult to find clothes in which to encase my body, since I am apparently so oddly shaped that the clothing manufacturing industry has never encountered my ilk before. Everyone else in the history of mankind who has size 11 hips has obliged them by also possessing a size 11 neck, arms, and shoulders. Also, those who are above a size 4 would appear to be 8 feet tall. If I can find a t-shirt that does not strain against my post-child-bearing belly, I have enough room around my shoulders and arms that I could smuggle watermelons undetected.

I'm also distressed that my retail role models appear to be Barbara Bush or Paris Hilton. Hmmm, who would I most like to dress like? A matronly grandma who's got all the sex appeal of a flannel nightgown, or a trashy, hootchee-mama who once and for all proves that money does not buy taste? It would seem that I can either buy clothes that make me look like I've just finished a game of bingo at the retirement home, or I can buy clothes that advertise the skills of my waxer. I want neither.

Couple all this with a bewildering penchant for satin this season, and you've got yourself a perfect storm of retail horror. Do manufacturers sit at the staff meeting planning their new lines saying things like "Now that low rise jeans and short little t-shirts have had their day, how can we now show off lumpy midriffs in a whole new way? I know! SATIN!!"? (I just noticed that 'satin' is one letter off from 'satan'. Not a coincidence, I'm sure.)

So, I didn't manage to find anything today, but I will find something suitable sooner or later. Perhaps my next stop would be the store where they sell clown costumes and fireworks.