The month between Thanksgiving and Christmas is so... ugh! Hurry, hurry, hurry to get the gifts bought before you miss the good deals and end up with the other procrastinators at the Maul on Christmas EVE! Of course, we have to be reminded at every step what the REAL meaning of the holiday is. An also, of course, the meaning varies greatly depending on who you ask.
This year I care more about finding a little PEACE than about anything else. I just want to get through this season in one piece. With the moves, the sister's wedding, and all the other stuff going on I wish the holidays were more of a holiday and less of a chore. Take this past weekend for example. The day after Thanksgiving, otherwise called Black Friday, is the most insane shopping day of the year and I do my best not to venture out AT ALL on that entire weekend. Yesterday, however, I had no choice. The two younger girls have a uniform style dress code for school in this town, and I got rid of anything resembling a polo or slacks when we moved to the country last year. We had gotten by for two weeks or so but the teachers were starting to make a fuss so, off through the crowds I went with feeble paycheck in hand.
Thankfully, DH did not leave me to fight the horde alone. He spent the first four hours with me and all three hooflings, going store to store, shopping - in vain - for pants that weren't too tight, too long, too this, or too that. By 4:30 though, he had toughed it out as best as he could and, as luck would have it, he had to rush home to be by the computer in case of work calls. Being on-call can suck, you know?
When I dropped DH off, I left the older two girls with him so I could focus more efficiently on the problem shopper of the day. I swear, there is nothing more frustrating than EG trying on every pair of pants and shoes in THREE DIFFERENT STORES only to walk away empty handed. This child has the ability to find something wrong with ANYTHING, and have a valid point to argue against it. She isn't called the Evil Genius for nothing.
I couldn't bail out and come back another day, though. The temperature outside has dropped to pre-winter levels and skirts and shorts just aren't going to cut it out there. I had to get some pants and warm school clothes or risk getting a call from the school for sending them to school inappropriately dressed.(Yes, they will do that around here.)
The best (read: worst) part of the evening, though, was finally finding TWO pair of slacks that she liked and then trying to check out only to find my card was rejected. I hate this crap. I suck at math and if I am over my limit by so much as a few cents, I get denied. Then I get confused and have no idea how far off I might be, so I really have no choice but to leave my stuff and come back after I check the bank balance. I even signed up for a bank service that will send me my balance if I text to them for it. Yeah,...thing is, it only works if YOU REMEMBER THAT YOU CAN USE IT. When I realized I could have avoided the whole disaster by using something I already signed up for, I wanted to kick myself all the way down the block.
Anyway, I managed to find a pair of uniform-approved warm leggings at home for EG to wear with a uniform skirt so that she wouldn't freeze at school today and I ran back to the store this afternoon to get the clothes I had picked out but left behind. Thankfully, I paid VERY close attention to what we got last night so I only needed to run in, grab the right size off the correct rack, and go.
Why couldn't it have been that easy yesterday?
Deb "Unshopper" Lollar
No comments:
Post a Comment