The Jungle of After Christmas Shopping

Today, I experienced the miracle of after-Christmas shopping at Target. If there are men out there who have never had the pleasure, this is similar to the ancient Indian practice of forcing victims to watch themselves slowly being skinned alive. Except I’m absolutely positive that shopping at Target takes longer. So you’re at a slight advantage if you happen to be captured by Indians on your way to shopping with your wife.

I was initially lured in by promising words and expressions like cheap and fifty percent off. These struck me as joyous words to be hearing. So the thought of coming along for whatever this was seemed positive and encouraging. Now, mind you, I have been shopping with my wife before and it was a bad memory. But I think it’s a bit like giving birth- for it’s own rehabilitation and survival, the mind has a tendency to suppress certain horrific experiences as though it’s never had them.

But it all came flooding back as I found myself buried neck deep in isle after isle of all these little red and green somethings and countless women rummaging through it all with perfect concentration on their faces. And all I could do was just stand there dodging carts trying to empty my head of any negative emotions that could be rising to the surface. All the time, my sister and mom and wife seemed like they were totally comfortable joining in with the dance of all these customers maneuvering around each other and pulling things off shelves to examine them. I always begin making the same promises to myself that I will never ever let myself go through this again; these are, of course, promises which I know I won't have the wisdom to keep in the future.

Richelle would come to me with a little red and green something every once and awhile and say, “Hey, what do you think of this?” All I could do was just nod my head and say, “Sure. Whatever sounds good to you.”

I had no ability to be thinking anything at that moment. The key to male survival at times like these is to totally shut down and flip on the autopilot. No thoughts are allowed in or out.

I think it was Christmas day that Richelle was mourning to me that every one else had sent out Christmas cards and that we hadn’t done that ourselves. I foolishly added that we could also include a Christmas letter and that I’d be more than glad to write that. I honestly don’t know what possessed me. I think it was the idea that Christmas was a year away and that was such a long time that quite possibly we may never arrive to that far-off date again. So tossing out empty promises was easy.

But it all came screeching into reality when Richelle started to bring me these packages of different types of Christmassy papers like snowflakes and reindeers and forcing me to give my opinion on what we should choose for our Christmas letter next year. I realized this was going to do more to make 365 days fly by than any other decision I could’ve made this year. These are little mistakes we young people make thinking the future will never come.

I picked the snowflakes for fear of having to be shown any of the rest of the options the store had to offer.