My hamper floweth over

Been feeling it a little lately, mostly because I am not a big shopper. I go to Target, Wal-Mart, and the Remarkable Shop (thrift store), will occasionally make a trip to TJ Maxx or Tuesday Morning, and that's about it. I don't find "I just need to run in and get one thing" shopping trips enjoyable (or for that matter, a realistic option) with 5 kids. I despise the mall, and have had unusually bad shopping luck this season. A few examples:

I was waiting in a ridiculously long check-out line at Wal-Mart (why have 50 check-out lanes and 10 checkers?), when my checker starts scanning my items at a very slow speed. She picks up a pair of mittens, seems to thoroughly inspect them, sits them down, and then sllooowwwlllyy scans them. Then, she stops scanning altogether, and stares off into space. Then she runs to the lane in front of us, and starts vomiting in the trashcan. She apologizes profusely (with vomit still on her chin), and I have the very un-christianlike thought "Please let her be pregnant", because I fear the stomach flu more than, well, almost anything. It takes 15 minutes and 3 managers to finishing checking me out, (one actually asks her "Do I need to find someone to finish your shift?") YES PLEASE!


I went to Tuesday Morning the other evening, and the store was virtually empty save 2 employees. One is telling the other her life story, LOUDLY, all about her ex-husband, who abused her mentally and physically, and how her new boyfriend is nicer, but boring, he doesn't like to "party", and won't go to bars with her, and sometimes she thinks about getting back together with her ex, (in spite of all their "problems" they really had a lot in common), but she doesn't think the sex will ever be the same. Kind of distracting when I am trying to decide whether to get my nephew the tinker toys or the legos.


Doing all this shopping, I feel compelled to listen to one of the 2 all Christmas radio stations that have been playing nothing but Christmas music since 2 weeks before Thanksgiving. Guess what? Not all Christmas music is good music. Quite frankly, I find about half of it extremely annoying...If I have to listen to the Beach Boys tell Rudolph to run one more time a may scream!



But then , the other night, a bright light appeared in the front of my house. I went to investigate, and found a brilliant star right above the computer monitor! The screen said "this is the way to happiness, Jamie" and it was then that I found the joy in online shopping. Being a miserly person, my online shopping in the past has been restricted to amazing deals on E-bay. However, I have learned to fully embrace online shopping. I can put on Christmas music that I like, browse through items without listening to some stranger talk about their sex life, click a button to check-out without fear of being barfed on by my cashier...

I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT!


God Bless us, everyone!

I am sooooo with you on this one. Christmas shopping used to be fun and leisurely and I really enjoyed it. Even with all the kids, I would enjoy it. But now there is ebay and so when I'm trying to buy something for my own kids chances are the person next to me is scooping the most popular items up to sell on ebay. And I wonder why I can never find anything in the stores these days. I hate that. I don't want to spend 3 times as much on ebay. I just want to buy it on sale at the store. I wish people would stop taking advantage like this. Takes a lot of fun out of shopping at Christmas, doesn't it?

There's my bahhumbug....from high on top of my soapbox:)

Annual reading of Jamie's "Bahhumbug" piece to keep me centered - CHECK!

Lizzee