No one wants to hear…
“I hate holiday shopping and I have always hated holiday shopping. Just the concept of wasting my time going from store to store all day for the past few weeks to get gifts people will most likely throw away or return. And when they get them it’s that momentary surprise and happiness when the next day, we’ll end up not talking to each other until the next year.
“Christmas this year is going to be hell. I don’t know how I’ll manage. I’ve got the turkey to put in the oven and of course ham (Dad won’t even sit at the table if there’s not ham). I have to make the mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and cranberry sauce. Then there are the carrots and green beans, and I’ll have to put the stuffing in the oven separate from the bird. I’ve heard that there’s this big problem with people getting sick from the stuffing because of the bacteria still in the bird. Desert, thank God, my sister is handling. Then I have to make eggnog, with and without alcohol, and hot chocolate, tea, and coffee. All this, for whom? My cousins, three aunts and their husbands, mom, dad, my two sisters, my brother in law, three nieces and a nephew, a couple of friends who have nowhere else to go, and this new boy that my younger sister has been dating. I have to figure out where they’re all going to sleep, make hotel reservations and kick the kids out of their rooms for one night. The next morning, I’ve got to make something different, mom never liked leftovers, so I’ll have to wake up at the crack of dawn to make cinnamon buns, pancakes, bacon and sausage, and scrambled eggs. We’ll see if I can get away with re-serving the ham. Then I’ll freshly squeeze the orange juice (Aunt Jean won’t have it any other way) and serve milk for the kids. Augh, I’ve still got presents to buy and then rush home and wrap them before the kids come home. But I have to figure out how I’m going to hide them if Howard isn’t home. We’ve got them in the top cabinet in our furnace room, now, and I can’t reach. We put cabinets in there just for storage, it makes the whole room a little nicer and if the kids play hide-and-seek, they don’t see their Christmas gifts. Anyway, I’m almost done with my shopping, but I still need to drive over to Nordstrom’s and get a gift certificate for my niece. I had no idea what to get her. Do you think a fourteen year old is too old for these Goosebumps books? He might want to get something a little more his age. I’ve just noticed that he’s been checking them out of the library a lot. I wonder if that means much? He might just be—”
“Ma’am, are you going to buy this?”
She stopped mid-sentence and looked around her. The cashier was looking at her annoyed. There was no longer a line behind her as the lady who had pulled up behind her was just moving her cart to another line.
“Yes,” she said, her face burning. “How much?”
This entry was posted on Saturday, December 16th, 2006 at 9:54 pm and is filed under Realistic Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.