Champagne taste verses Budweiser braggin'

This is a tangible expression of my feelings about Christmas shopping this year. I'm so over it! It began a few days ago when I decided to venture to Wal-Mart. I went in the afternoon, thinking it would be slightly less crowded. I was delirious and such was my state of being for several days. Anyway, it was wall to wall people and every banshee child acting like a flaming tantrum on wheels was in appearance. All of us adults were just wandering around aimlessly, looking like a poor doe with her vacant stare into the headlights of an oncoming car. Two and a half hours later, a cart full of who-knows-what, and the overwhelming desire to run my car off a cliff, I managed to escape.

That same evening my "friend with great benefits" and I agreed that we would go Christmas shopping together the following night. So here's my thinking. We'll hit the mall, I'll get something for my Mom and one of the kids. This would also provide me the chance to get a better idea of what to get "the man who has everything." By the way, this is the greatest mystery I've been faced with in quite some time. Back to the story. While I had goals in mind, I thought this would be a leisurely kind of thing. He explained to me who he had yet to buy gifts for and so I figured we'd also knock those out one by one. After the fact, I concede to the fact that this was a hallucination. We never made it past Macy's. I suggested heading to Nordstrom to find a gift for his Mom. It was explained to me that I have champagne taste and he loves Budweiser. After an hour and the purchase of one gift on my part, we headed home. Later we get to talking and he announces "So, you know how much I care about you?" "Uh, yeah..." "Let's agree to NEVER go shopping together again!" "You're kidding right? What's wrong with how I shop?" Recap of the beer vs. champagne thing and...."You're just really bossy." The thump that ensued was me fainting over such an allegation! Me, bossy? Was he delirious? How could my simple suggestions be perceived as bossy? How could my comment of "get up off the couch, we're not finished yet" be construed as officious? That's just good leadership on my part!!! He also mentions at this point that my understated manipulations for things I want are about as subtle as a freight train. Here, all this time I thought I was being coy while putting my toe over the line. Cleverness, I thought, was my greatest adversary. Humph. Have you ever had a moment when you've been figured out, discovered, called on the carpet? You know the other person is right and all you can do is sit there with a poo-eating grin? Insert my face here with such a grin. All this time, I thought I had him in my back pocket. He's smarter than I thought!

I'm off now to Toys-R-Us. Later this evening you might hear something come from my Scarlett O'Hara alter-ego..."Darlin', I have suffered so. Oh, the madness of it all and yet I pressed on. Fix me a drink and hand me a Nembutal..." So, the drink would be eggnog and the Nembutal a diuretic to cure this ever worsening water-weight gain...but that's another story!

Happy shopping to all!