One Way to Xmas Shop
I went Christmas shopping Saturday and did not witness one fist fight. We’ve improved since the day after Thanksgiving.
I barely got a sneer or a glare, although I did contribute a couple holiday daggers through my windshield in a couple parking lots.
What is so difficult about one-way arrows? Here’s a hint, free of charge: When all the vehicles are parked in one direction, chances are good that is the direction of traffic. Sure, I understand a goof every once in a while, but I was in a wrong-way warp late Saturday afternoon.
I survived without a scratch or fingered salute — mine or theirs, although neither would have been out of the question. Overcome with the spirit of the season, I moved on, in an orderly manner, with the flow of traffic. Yes, smugness is an unnatural greeting for the season.
I do have issues: While recognizing that I could be disrespecting an entire gender, I have to admit I completed my appointed rounds and now consider myself finished shopping 12 days before Christmas Eve. Sorry, fellas, I’ll do better next year.
My journey was not without effort, however, including 20 minutes in a checkout line where clerks struggled with extraordinary requests from customers who thought they were shopping online when in fact that was where the rest of us waited, on line (two words); computers with a chippy attitude; and, apparently, new gigs for a couple new employees. I wanted to ask if two Saturdays before Christmas Eve was the best time to break someone in, but extending my stay on line would have been cruel and unusual punishment.
Still, I was surprised at the civility of it all — myself included. After 10 minutes of waiting, I thought about what might have happened in Los Angeles, where I shopped for 10 Christmases. My theory goes like this: The larger the city, the less patience with things like 20 minutes on line to buy a gift certificate. Even in laid-back L.A., I might have witnessed that fist fight or, at a minimum, heard plenty of shouting. A trip to the post office or bank in my old neighborhood in any season was always worth a meltdown or two. The trick was to make sure it wasn’t you doing the melting.
Still, we have our moments here. A few years ago, while ringing the bell for the Salvation Army in front of a big box with a parking lot the size of North Dakota, I saw two guys nearly throw down over a parking space close to the door.
As one of them made his way toward the building, I thought about asking him the appropriate question, given what I had just seen: “Know anywhere I can score Laker tickets?”