A Declaration of Intent and Failure

                            Confessions of Christmas Shopping Loser. 

                                     (Based entirely on a true story) 

Dear Wife…Once again I have failed in the attempt to purchase anything for you this Christmas; though it is not for the lack of trying. I have spent long grueling hours seeking to crack the mystery of what you might possibly want or possibly need. I asked the appropriate people, who staring blankly into the air, said they had no idea, and left me with a growing sense of doom. I even did that which I solemnly vowed never to do again…. Attempt shopping with those other poor souls who have waited for the last possible moment to purchase that one thing they could never find till late Christmas Eve. So I set out to go with a fellow procrastinator in search of what we knew we would never find. 

We entered the store amid the faint sounds of what appeared to be the bleating of sheep being led away to slaughter. The noise grew to a chorus of wailing and gnashing of teeth that completely neutralized any Christmas music wafting through the store. I realized with a growing sense of dread that something was terribly wrong. I cannot tell you the abject horror that comes over you, when surrounded by scores of fellow CSLs (Christmas Shopping Losers) and amidst tens of thousands of brightly colored do-dads, that were left after being picked over by successful shoppers, you begin to realize your hopeless fate. No one even dared to look at each other for fear of seeing in their eyes the guilt and shame that came from being at Kmart on Christmas Eve. So we all just aimlessly walked up and down the aisles moaning and anguishing over our destiny to become Christmas Shopping Losers. Up and down the aisles over and over again looking at the same old dumb stuff till you would give twenty dollars just to find a place to sit down to relieve the pain in your legs. The suffering was rampant everywhere. There were grown men with blank stares wringing their hands crying ….Anything! Anything!  There were women with dark circles beneath their eyes, clutching their purses and leaning on the empty shelves muttering …it’s gone, it’s gone. One old gentleman sat in the middle of the home appliance section muttering to himself ….I can’t go home…where will I live …where will I go? Every so often someone would stop, look down at the floor, utter a small groan, grab something off the shelf and shaking his head begin the humiliating death march to the long checkout lines. It was at that moment, while walking alongside other Zombie looking humans who shared the same mental delusion that we could actually find something in K mart on Christmas Eve that it came to me! This is hopeless… utterly and completely hopeless … I must give up this self induced torture and surrender to the reality that there is nothing here for me to buy…. it just doesn’t exist. I quickly grabbed some deodorant and other non Christmas items and made my getaway, trying to appear in the checkout line as if this was my original purpose in coming to this modern rendition of Dante’s Inferno. Safely in the car I waited for my fellow procrastinator and prayed he would make it back.

So I have come up with this; that I shall, as penitence, serve you the rest of my life and promise you that any week end that you choose, I will take you…anywhere you want, with anyone you want and do whatever you want. May this offering somehow atone for my sins.

Merry Christmas from a Christmas Shopping Loser ….your devoted husband.