Shoppin'

So, I'm nearly done with my nondenominational Christmas shopping. Just have to buy a gift for one more person and I'm all finished. Hopefully tomorrow.

To get this close to being finished, I went out today. I braved The Mall parking lot (I walked through it) to get to the same stores every mall in the USA have. It was crowded in and out, very crowded.

I don't mind the crowds.

I think they're fun.

Almost everyone rushing around as if this is the most important thing they have in their lives. People trying to push through the group of three ladies barely moving, but trying to push without actually touching or just asking one to move to the side. The screaming kids with the purple faces in strollers being pushed by parents who pretend not to hear anything. The man, in his forties, who takes his place at the end of a ten person line and says, "I can't believe how crowded it is. Was it this crowded last year? I don't think it was. The crowds just get worse every year. It was never like this when I was a kid."

All this makes me laugh.

I never try to be in such a rush that I can't slow down to the speed of the three ladies in front of me. Screaming kids who look like they're heads are about to explode make me laugh. And the guy at the end of the line is wrong, it's been this bad for years.

Problems go away, they just shift to a different location for a while.

* * *

I made two mistakes today.

The first one was buying myself something that can easily be a gift from someone. I bought myself the second volume of Mickey Mouse in black and white. There was only one left in the store and I couldn't pass it up. I'm sorry if someone out there bought it for me, but I've opened mine. I couldn't help myself. I wasn't thinking.

Visiting a bookstore was my other mistake. I haven't been in a bookstore, off campus, of course, since some time in October. I have a problem: I like to buy books. After ten minutes in the store, I found myself carrying seven books and had to remind myself that I was looking for gifts for others, not myself. In the end, I found some gifts there for other people and bought myself only two. It was hard, but a decision I'll have to live with.

Tomorrow, out for the last gift and then off to work in the evening.