Tis The Season

Yesterday I went shopping with the bestie. Our intention was to shop with purpose and knock off some of the names on our Christmas lists. I don't know what we were thinking because we don't shop well together. Oh we have a good time laughing, sampling yummy things we shouldn't be sampling, and talking each other into buying things for ourselves, but doing productive Christmas shopping for others just never seems to work out on our excursions. While I came home last night with two really cute shirts for myself, I didn't put much of a dent in my Christmas list so I ventured out this morning to conquer the mall.

And it was awful.

The first stop was Target. It was quiet and surprisingly not crowded. In hindsight I should have made that my only stop and just bought everyone on my list Target gift cards Oh hindsight you are so smart.

Shortly after I exited the Target parking lot en route to the mall, I noticed a man in a truck next to me trying to get me to roll down my window. Thinking something was wrong with my car I rolled down the window so I could hear what he was saying and this is what he said: " Hey baby what's your name?" ARE YOU KIDDING ME????? Thinking this guy was either smoking crack or just coming out of prison and seeing a woman for the first time in years, I gave him a not so nice look and took off. He must have mistook that not so nice look for a come- hither look because he continued to follow me and try to get me to tell him my name. Seriously does that really work for anybody? Looking back I should have been more alarmed than I was ( there's that hindsight again) but I was actually just getting ticked off so I took out my cell phone and acted like I was taking his picture and then slowed down to get behind his truck to take a picture of his license plate. I say acted like because I really don't know how to use the camera on my phone but I must have looked convincing to him because he took off and I continued on to my destination.

Ahhh the mall on a Saturday right before Christmas..... need I say more? Probably not... but I will.

After finally finding a parking spot and while walking a mile to get into the mall I mentally mapped out where I would go, and what I would get while spending the least possible amount of time in the mall. Basically I was shopping like a man.

What is that saying about the best laid plans?

Yeah, my plans were not in line with the hundreds of other people clogging every square inch of the mall. As I made my way through the throngs of people, I was assaulted by smells that I swear were not human, sprayed by a line of barbie dolls selling perfume, and run into by a toddler who's parents thought it was adorable that he wanted to push his own stroller.....in the middle of a mall filled with hundreds of people. Yeah.

As soon as I left the mall I headed to the liquor store.

I must say the liquor store is the ideal place to shop. There were no funky smells, no toddlers with deranged parents, and I didn't get sprayed with anything. I was in and out of there in five minutes and I was able to scratch my brothers name off of my list.

I was definetly in the Christmas spirit when I left there and I'm sure it had nothing to do with the samples they were handing out.