My Love Affair with Shopping

Everyone has something they can do, and no matter what, it will relax them. Some people meditate. Others will bake, read, sew, have sex…whatever. That is all well and good, but for me that outlet is shopping. I don’t even need to buy anything (although I do enjoy buying things) it is just the act of shopping that makes me smile. Wandering aimlessly through the stores, dodging pushy salespeople, thinking I have won some cosmic game if I can stay in a store for any period of time and not be harassed by some teenage worker. I love checking out the latest styles. Stopping every few racks, touching a shirt, feeling the fabric, noting the pattern and the price, then moving on to the next rack to repeat the process.

Ever since I was a little boy I have enjoyed shopping. I vividly remember asking my mother for a dollar and walking to Stewarts. Stewarts is the East Coast equivalent of 7-11. Before buying anything, I would browse the candy aisle, check out the potato chips, look at the automotive supplies. I’d usually end up buying an ice cream sundae, but not until I had perused all offerings in the store. It just didn’t seem right if I didn’t know the contents of the store before leaving.

As I got older my shopping became more specific. I would leave the house to shop for specific items to answer a specific shopping craving. Shoes are my number one quarry, but other times I will only look at kitchen items. Or office supplies. Home accessories like mirrors or end tables are pretty high on the list as well. Whatever stress I am having, there is a certain type of shopping that will alleviate it.

On Saturday, tragedy struck. This is the type of tragedy that will happen to each and every one of us at some point in our lives. But, when it happens you feel as if God has punched you in the stomach and said, “I hate you. You are old.” I found a grey hair. Yes, a grey hair. In my goatee. On the lower right part of my chin. One single grey hair. At first I tried to convince myself that it was really just a blonde hair. Because there is nothing wrong with blonde. Millions of people actually go out and pay to become blonde. A stray blonde hair isn’t something to be upset about. It’s actually something to be happy about! Upon closer inspection, even I couldn’t persuade myself that the hair was blond.

My first thought was of my mother. I remembered being in the car with her when I was 10ish. I looked over and said, “Hey. I see a grey hair!” To me, this was something exciting, something out of the norm and needed to be brought to her attention immediately. My mother reacted as if I’d said; “There’s a spider in your hair!” Her hands went to her head, “WHAT? WHERE! WHAT? Well, pull it out! PULL IT OUT!!!” I remember being kind of afraid of her as she shook her head in my face screaming, “PULL IT OUT! GET RID OF IT! EWW! EWW! EWW!” It wasn’t until some 17 years later that I understood what she was feeling.

My first plan of action was to do just as my mother did. Pull it out. Naturally I couldn’t find my tweezers. With no tweezers, the next best option was my fingers. No good. I couldn’t get a grip on just that hair, and unless I wanted a bald patch on my chin, and a missing chunk of skin, I was going to have to find another way. I thought about coloring it in with a Sharpie, but the only Sharpies I had were lime green and fuchsia. I’ll admit though, I did think that a lime green chin hair would be kind of fun…

With no options for getting rid of the offending hair, I found myself in the car. Driving to Salt Lake City. I HAD to go to Nordstrom Rack. I just knew that the shoes I had been secretly desiring were there waiting for me. On my way there I sent a text message to a couple of friends informing them of the bad news. I immediately received phone calls offering condolences. Then they would ask, “What are you doing now?” I replied, "Shopping." They laughed and said, “Naturally…”

After I heard this sentiment for the second time, I realized why I love shopping so much. For me it is a celebration of my success. It is something I have total control over. So what if I have a grey chin hair. Armed with the power of Visa I can spend $2,000 on shoes! Can you do that grey chin hair? I didn’t think so. So watch your back little grey hair, because as soon as I find my tweezers you are toast!

Here comes Peter Cottontail...

Today marks the two week anniversary of a very tragic event. My co-worker ran over a little bunny in the canyon. On her way to work, she was driving along and the bunny, from this point forward we shall call her “the victim” hopped into the road and stopped in the middle of her lane. Carrie, upon seeing the victim, had only seconds to decide on a course of action. She evaluated the situation, and determined that her car had enough ground clearance to miss the victim. She kept her speed constant at 70 mph, lined her car so the victim would go right between the tires, and ran straight over the bunny. It became very evident, very quickly that her car was not, in fact, high enough off the road to clear the bunny. She heard a loud “THUMP” and Mrs. Bunny was effectively decapitated.

Well I thought that this was perhaps the funniest story I had heard in ages! I laughed and laughed while Carrie cried and cried, which only made me laugh harder. So to make her feel better I made the following card for her:

Way to go Killer!

Before

After

And who says I'm a bad friend...

Chuck it out the window!!

I found out this past weekend that I am going to be an uncle. This is very exciting news, and I know that my little sister is thrilled. As is my mother, who will hopefully stop harassing me to have children of my own, which for obvious reasons will never, ever happen.

As I was thinking of what kind of mother my sister will be, I remembered something that happened when we were in high school.

Kerry was enrolled in a home economics class, where one assignment was to care for an electronic baby for 24 hours. The baby was programmed to cry at certain times and each time the baby would cry you had to find the appropriate key to soothe it. Each key was to be inserted into the baby's back and symbolized a different need the e-baby had. One key was for hunger, another for attention, a diaper change, etc… There were about 10 keys in all. If you neglected the baby and it cried for too long the computer inside the baby recorded the neglect and reported it back to the teacher. If you neglected the baby too often it would die, resulting in an F for the assignment.

My mother and I thought the baby wouldn’t make it through lunch. Miss Kerry doesn’t have the greatest amount of patience and we thought for sure she would shove the baby in her locker after it cried one time, effectively killing it. So, when Kerry arrived home that afternoon and the baby wasn’t broken in half, we were quite surprised. She told us that the baby had barely cried at all during the day and that she was actually having fun. She also told us that the person who had it before her forgot it in the car, and killed it. Which we all thought was quite hilarious. “I think I’ll really like being a mom.” Kerry told us, fake baby on hip. Famous last words.

We made it through the evening and the baby was remarkably well behaved. It only cried a few times, and she was able to get it to quiet down quickly by selecting the correct key.

The proverbial shit hit the fan however around 2am. Every 15-20 minutes the baby would start to cry. It must be noted that the e-baby didn’t cry like a normal baby. It didn’t make cute, cooing, look how adorable I am cries. Oh no. It cried as if an air raid siren had been hidden inside it’s little plastic body. When that baby cried the windows shook. Nothing, and I mean nothing could prepare you to be woken by that hideous screaming. The wailing would wake up everyone in the house, and after each awakening my sister grew less and less patient. I must admit, I secretly fantasized about "forgetting it it in my car" until morning.

Around 4am, the baby cried again. All of us lay in bed, fingers in ears, waiting for her to shut the baby off. We could hear my sister moving around in her room, hear her fiddling with the key ring, desperately trying to find the appropriate key to quiet the screaming machine. Nothing seemed to be working. Over the din, we could hear my sister talking, very faintly, to the baby. We strained to hear what she was saying, and could faintly hear the menacing whisper, “If you cry one more time, I’m going to throw you out the window…I dare you. Just one. More. Time…”

From the other room, my mother yells, “Kerry Marie! That is awful!!”

“Well I can’t stand it anymore! This stupid thing has been crying all night long! I hate it! I am tired and all I want to do is sleep!” I imagine her shaking the baby as she is saying this, while stabbing various keys into it’s back.

With that said, welcome to motherhood Kerry Marie! And to my in utero niece or nephew, please try and keep it down after 2am. Nobody wants to see you chucked out a window.