I’ll admit it… I took off work today.

It’s not like I have anything to feel guilty about… rather I should feel proud that I finally allowed myself to take a little time off. (even if it was to hang with my out of town company)

My wife talked herself out of commission over the past two days. No, really…. I think she spoke from Wednesday to late Thursday night. Unfortunately it was about two never-ending sentences. She barely came up for air.

Left to our own devices, we went to the mall on a Mission From Satan<tm>: PROCURE EEYORE MERCHANDISE.

I don’t get out much (as you’d expect). There were stores at the mall that I didn’t know moved in recently (in the past 3 years?). I mean really… the Cheesecake Factory? Are there little elves unwrapping bars of cream cheese into great vats?

There weren’t as many lines as I expected this close to xmas, with the exception of the line to get in the mall. We had to stand outside in the rain for twenty minutes before we could enter. They were doing the boot check… checking that at least 83% of women entering the mall were wearing their Nanook of the North boots.

Wearing mukluks in the Philly area makes roughly as much sense as driving Lincoln SUV’s.

We saw the usual amount of fashion faux pas. Don’t get me wrong - I am a walking disaster, but at least my clothes fit. We saw all manner of little girls walking around, spilling out of their shirts. When I was younger, this was a positive concept that meant they were showing lots of cleavage. Today it means they have Dunlaps Disease (their bellies dun lap over their belts).

Put another way, I like boobs (among other things). When I tell you to put them away, you know there’s a problem.

Now, where was I?

Oh yeah, xmas shopping.

We saw all sorts of people running into each other on the escalator. Running into each other on the escalator? Yes, one of the escalators is invariably broken, so people were running up and down the same one, bumping into one another.

Then there was the uniquely American phenomenon of Having Your Picture Taken With Santa (four days before xmas). They were lined up twenty-five deep for this one.

We went into one of those seasonal Seen On TV stores and immediately beheld our first treasure: the office fish tank. It was a fish tank decorated with desks and computers.

What is it with golf? Here we have a sport so boring it could put Ted Nugent to sleep, yet there are hundreds of golfing toys to keep in your office. Practice clubs, practice holes, and now a PRACTICE LASER CLUB. Now there’s no need to work whatsoever!

Next on the notice list was a dry erase auto marker board. As if constantly talking on your cell phone wasn’t enough to completely divert your attention from the annoying task of actually driving your car, now you can take notes!

If the unthinkable happens and your cell phone doesn’t work, you can purchase the auto voice recorder and notepad and talk to that instead of driving.

My personal favorite item title was the Everlast Folding Dumbbell Tree. I swear I work with a few of these.

I finally located the Disney Store and finally found some Eeyore merchandise. All went well until we got in line. I couldn’t find a certain small stuffed Eeyore behind the counter, so I went to the other counter, which was unused, but had the very Eeyore I wanted behind it. Since no one was about, I walked behind the counter and helped myself to the Eeyore in question (I’m getting ballsy in my old age). Reading the sign that said 2 for $12, I had to go back behind the counter and procure the second Eeyore. Well, it’s not like there was anyone around to assist me. The only Helpful Salesperson-type we came across spent my time trying to sell me a DisneyCard with six months interest-free. Assuring her we were interest-free, she went on to annoy other innocent consumers.

Meanwhile back in line, we heard this large female voice asking the entire line to move over six feet to the left so people could get out easier. I loudly suggested that traffic could move much faster if they would open a second cash register, but alas, my suggestion went unheeded by the perennially cheerful Disney Denizens. The large female voice turned out to belong to the small female employee who `assisted’ us with the six foot move. I don’t assume, though, because a large female voice in a Disney store may not necessarily belong to a female (c’mon, you’ve been there too). After only fifteen more minutes, we were cheerfully checked out by a cohort of cheerful cashiers, the likes of which only Disney could provide. Mission accomplished.
No trip is finished without a stop into Radio Shack (you’ve got questions, we’ve got cell phones and dumb looks). It was quite free of annoying distractions, right up until the alarm went off. It was a rather loud alarm that went BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. We noticed it well ahead of the employees, who apparently are impervious to anything that goes BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. In fact, it continued to go BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP for about ten minutes, at which point the bright, smart young folks who toil there still hadn’t noticed it.

Now all that’s left is to wait til the real fun starts on xmas eve: going to the mall, getting a hot chocolate, and sitting on a bench, watching people run around like loons, looking for just the right present (or any present at all).