No, really. I seem to have gotten lost in this blizzard of paper.
ANYway, last night was Christmas shopping night for the youngsters, with a brief bit of civic dutifulness ahead of time. Met up with Miss Reba at the house, unloaded work stuff, and then headed out for a quick bite before my meeting.
Stopped at a local joint called Willy T.'s, which is known amongst the fair dwellers of The Gateway to Happy Living for its delecatable fried chicken strips. Walked in and was greeted by a chipper young lady of beauty queen good looks with the news that they had no fried chicken ready.
Reminds me of the time in the long ago when my folks and sister and I were on vacation and stopped at a Waffle House, and they had no waffles.
ANYway, we got ourselves each a cheeseburger, which was of the big old-timey mom-and-pop handmade type, and it was quite good. Aside from an unmistakable flavor of char in certain bites. I blame that on the kid in the back manning the grill who had pierced ears with those great huge black spools in them.
On then down the street to City Hall, dithered about, did our quasi-judicial thing, and then it was time to run up Santa's credit card debt.
First, to Sam's, where we picked up a nice little portable DVD player for Middle Girl, a CD for one of the other kids, and some baklava for the Christmas grazing table at work. (By the way, this seems to have gone over very well. It's only 10:16 and it's just about gone.)
Next stop, Wal-Mart, looking for something for Cat, who has been wanting--of all things--a guitar. I'm not sure if you've ever noticed, but learning to play a guitar (which she will have to do, seeing as how she doesn't know how) requires an attention span of longer than five seconds. I was willing to get her something inexpensive, but all of the other parents in similar situations had apparently beaten me to all the budget-priced models. So, no deal on that. Santa can be very cruel that way. Did manage to find a couple more CDs and the "Deal or No Deal" DVD game. (Trust me--Tiny Terror wanted this more than a guitar, and at least she WILL play it for more than five minutes.)
So far, despite all the wandering about and looking, not a lot in the way of things. Hard to buy for people who have everything, you know. ::cough::MissReba::cough::
Next stop, Best Buy to see about picking out a CD player for the Focus. We've been promising Oldest since before she turned 16 that we'd get a CD player installed in it so she could listen to something other than the horrible old-fashioned abominations known as "cassette tapes." Why, one might as well have a giant Victrola strapped to the hood as have to endure such things! Anyway, despite the avidly disaffected "assistance" offered by the sales staff, we STILL managed to find a relatively nice Sony model (the slammin' jammin' CDXGT510, dude!). If I ran Best Buy, I would have a spot on the employment application that says the applicant agrees to not wander around with his mouth hanging open all the time. Also got Boy a GameBoy game and a DVD of something or other.
ON TO TARGET, where we looked again for an inexpensive bestring-ed musical instrument, and again came up with nothing. Found another CD. Purchased it from a young man who never let our patronage interrupt the conversation he was having with his associate. If I ran Target, I would have a spot on the employment application that says the applicant agrees to at least pretend to be interested in the person who's helping to pay his salary, and at least acknowledge paying customers while they are at the cash register--even if this means taking a break from a conversation with someone else.
By now, it was 11:00. Too late to go to the bookstore, where we still had some things to get.
Oh well.
On to home, unloaded the gifts, hid them away, and crawled into bed.
It's very tiring being Santa.
Posted by Terry Oglesby at December 22, 2006 10:38 AM