Christmas Memories

The following is a true account. The names and places will be somewhat altered to prevent lawsuits.

It’s the week before Christmas. It’s cold and snowy but I have many errands to run, not the least of which is the annual journey to the post office with the boxes full of gifts for the out of town relations. This is usually around seven or eight, heavy, big boxes, but this year it seems like we are sending closer to fifteen.

The boxes get loaded into the family truckster. I am all set. I am even a little bit ahead of schedule. Now I just put the key into the ignition and …key? Oh no…I don’t have the keys? The house is of course locked up tight. And all those conversations about hiding a spare somewhere…well those were just talk.

Eventually after some frantic cell phone dialing and just before I freeze to death my Father-in-law shows up with a look that says if you were any more stupid they would have to lock you up and lets me into my house.

Now I am late. I drive with great haste to the PO and lug all 25 packages in. It takes several trips, and some of those were really trips with my ballet like gracefulness causing me to fall flat on my face more than once. I shepherd all those packages through the line which is mercifully short and reach for my wallet to pay…..of course you know what’s next.

So all 30 packages get carried back out to the car and I head back home to get my wallet.

The return trip to the PO involved me chewing on the steering wheel a little and the act of transporting the 50 packages back into the now crowded Post Office didn’t have me humming Silent Night if you get my drift.

Later on that day I did actual shopping. The S word is not one that I am enamored of. Especially around the Holiday season when the people who haven’t been out of the cave all year are all out.

But, stout-hearted man that I am I braved the lines and rude sales clerks and frustrating searches and got every single thing on my list! Huzzah! I won’t have to do the s thing or go near the m word (mmmm all) for another year.

One purchase was a $50 gift card to; oh lets just say a national clothing retailer. They sell dresses. My Daughter in Connecticut shops there. Perfect!

Till I get home and discover that the card has $50 on it, but the little card holder says $25.

Of course we can’t send the card without the correct amount on the card holder so now I have to go back. Arrgh.

The return trip was not so good. The clerk I had the misfortune of dealing with this time did not speak English. Or at least I could not understand her. And for some reason I still do not understand we had to do the whole transaction over again. And this time she wanted all sorts of information. Like my home phone number. Why? I asked. She said something that sounded like professor backwards choking on a chicken bone.

I lost it.

My long suffering wife will attest to the fact that there is nothing quite like it when I lose it in a public place. She was with me that day and I am sure that someday soon she will be talking to me again.