Enter the Shopper

I know officially I'm not entitled to any veteran's pay or anything, but I think I deserve it after last weekend. The post-Thanksgiving Day weekend. The Vietnam of weekends. And where's my parade?

Okay, maybe it's the Korean War of weekends, and the weekend before Christmas is the Vietnam. That call's up in the air. But I do deserve some major pity, and I want it delivered since I'm still too tired to go anywhere else. I haven't been shopping since. I've got post-mallwalking stress disorder.

It started innocently enough. I saw McCattery's Jewelers was having a half-off sale on bling-bling, but it started at 8 a.m. Yeah, "a.m." as in "at morning." I'm completely out of my element when it comes to shopping on a budget, which also explains where all my Who's Your Daddy? money went to, so I didn't know where to go. Then I lucked out, because I found out the lady who keeps calling me trying to get money for my credit cards, Mina, turns out she's a big shopping wizard. Wizardess, whatever you would call it. It took some conniving, but I managed to join her shopping party. I figured she would help me with all the inside secrets.

Big mistake, though I didn't know it at the time. She was leaving the house at 1 a.m. ("almost morning). I've left the house a lot of times at 1 a.m., but it was different this time because my fridge was already full of beer and I didn't have half a buzz. I thought it might be fun, we'd make a night out of it, head for the bars and tie one up. Drop by the stores on the way home and make fun of the shopping morons while we loaded up on ornamentation.

No. Check this shit out—Mina and her shopping galpal Lynette were actually getting in line at Wal-Mart at that time. I thought it was shopping overkill, but there was already a line when we showed up. Mina said Wal-Mart opened at 5 a.m., and we'd have more than enough time to get to McCattery's for the stuff I wanted. She wanted to get a DVD player for the guest bedroom and a guest bedroom mattress, and then would hit Lowe's when they opened for lumber to build a guest bedroom. The deal, as far as she was concerned, was I would help stake out items she wanted and help her carry stuff to the cart, her shopping safety base, and she would keep me from getting screwed at the jeweler's.

It wouldn't be column-worthy if it all worked out as planned, you must have learned that by now. I was jostled, bustled, wrassled, bumped, poked, and prodded just standing in line for the lame-ass DVD player. Then a fight broke out when two monster ladies grabbed for one DVD player at the same time. They got to rolling and stomping around like Godzilla and Rodan and I was knocked off my feet. I lost hold on my DVD player, the one I had stood in line three hours for, and one of the she-beasts grabbed it.

I tried to make it up to Mina by grabbing some fencing, the only thing nobody was trampling over everybody else to get to, but I ended up needing to throw it over the crowd just to get past them. Mina was pissed, you better believe. She would have dumped me completely, but she needed someone to help her carry the lumber since Lynette had never returned from housewares.

It never got any better. All we could get from Lowe's was driftwood, thanks to a crowd that started earlier than we anticipated, and when I got to McCattery's I at last noticed even at half-price all the gaudy jewelry was outrageously priced. I might have bought it, but Mina was heckling me so badly I didn't think it was worth it.

I'm not asking for a parade, or even combat pay, although if the government wants to award it to me, I wouldn't argue. I just want you to take a few minutes this year over the Christmas ham and say a silent prayer out loud for the lost ones, like Lynette. This one's for her, and for Meek Susie, and Big Glasses, and Fatty with the Scarf, and Sweats. All the hard-fighting ladies who didn't make it out, or at least I didn't see again as I was leaving. And for me. Mostly for me.

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