Make Mine Mike

Between being sick, and then being tired, and then being focused on the holidays, I haven’t felt much like blogging. Fortunately, my congestion’s gone and the energy’s returned. But my Scrooginess will never go away.

Whether a store’s sound system plays “Jingle Bells Rock” with a big band arrangement or includes a reggae version of “Deck the Halls”, they’re the same damn tunes. Yes, I know, Christmas and Chanukkah are for children, so we can all witness these winter wonders through their innocent eyes. But still, our adult ears have heard this fucking playlist for the last 30-something Decembers. Imagine every summer, the radios repeating just a dozen ditties, among them “The Macarena”, “Getting’ Jiggy With it” and “The Thong Song”.

People tell me that it’s normal to find Xmas shopping annoying, but often these are the same folks who seem to enjoy it at any time, which I can’t understand. Maybe they like practicing for the end of the year, so they can be smug about how they got it all done so easily. I, on the other hand, am a babe in the woods when it comes to consumerism.

I wish I hadn’t waited so long to order stuff online, ‘cause now nothing will arrive ‘til January. So I had to hightail it to retail. And forget comparison shopping. Even if I had time for that, I have absolutely no patience. A friend’s advice: “Oh, you could get this cheaper downtown, and that at half price up in Woodland Hills and they have a greater selection of all of this in Pomona, just 8 miles off Route 60…” was met with my icy stare, basically saying: “Are you shittin’ me?”

Obviously, I’m like this all the time. My experiences with shopping are sporadic and few, and thus each endeavor is viewed as a tactical mission to be accomplished as quickly and painlessly as possible.

Once I had a card for 30% off any purchase at Banana Republic. I hadn’t gotten any new threads in about a year. I really only needed a new pair of pants, but this was a good excuse to get my lazy ass to finally update my wardrobe, somewhat. Still, I can only take a few minutes of browsing for clothes and trying shit on before I get antsy to get the hell outta there. I decided to only get the pants. As the cashier rang me up, she said that the discount card only worked for purchases of $75 or more, and my one item cost less than that. I sighed and went quickly to get something else, maybe a sweater or a few pairs of socks or something. The cashier pointed out that I was going to spend more just to save a little and suggested I buy the pants but use the card for another time. “Another time? This card expires in two months,” I said. “You think I’d come back so soon? I’m here now. Let’s do this thing.”