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06 December 2008

File That Under...

...what was I thinking?

A little background: I'm a very stubborn person. Once I get an idea fixed in my head, I'm gonna go through with it come Hell or high water. This morning's idea? Finish my Christmas shopping, which involved driving 30 minutes down to the big, new, as-yet-unspoiled Target.

The problem? Snow. The forecast called for an inch or so to fall overnight, but what greeted us this morning was more like 2-3". *sigh* But I wasn't going to let the white stuff stop me - no way, no how! So I bundled myself up and set out.

The roads were *awful.* At 7:30 AM, nothing was plowed yet, or if it was, it was a half-assed job. I clutched the wheel in a white-knuckled grip, thinking, "What the hell am I doing out here?", but kept going. That damn stubbornness of mine, again. I drove well under the speed limit to stay safe, but now and again some jackass in a pickup or SUV had to play quien es mas macho and either ride my bumper or blow past me like I was standing still. Whatever. See you in the nearest ditch, asshole.

It took me a while to make it down to Target, but I arrived safely, parked, and went inside...to be greeted by a huge crowd of parents with kids, along with an equally large number of uniformed sheriff's department officers.

Oh, crap.

Yep, for two years in a row, I've managed to hit the store right at their "Shop with the Sheriff" celebration. The local sheriff's department takes donations for underprivileged families, then invites the kids of said families to go shopping for Christmas presents; each kid/family gets an equal amount of money, and one of the deputies accompanies them around the store, helping them shop for gifts for their family. And Santa's there, of course. A neat idea, but one that made for a totally PACKED store! I hastened past the assembled throng, smiled at the nice officers, grabbed a cart, and desperately hoped I could finish before the masses hit the checkout lanes.

The gods of karma must have been smiling down on me, because twenty minutes later I'd managed to find everything on my list (mostly stocking stuffers, plus a couple of things for me) and got out before things got totally crazy. Then I loaded up the car and headed home. By this time the roads were decently plowed and salted, so travel was wet and sloppy, but not slippery, thank goodness.

Dang. Glad that's over. A successful trip, one that marked the official end of my Christmas shopping, but why in the heck did I have to go *this* morning? Any sane individual would have taken one look at the weather, said "Maybe tomorrow," and gone back to bed. But no, not me.

What was I thinking? That I'm a stubborn idiot, that's what. :-)

1 comments:

Nan said...

HA! We share the same stubborness. I was out at ungodly hour this morning shopping and running errands-inspite of inches of snow, blowing snow and bitter cold.

Unfortunately I still have christmas shopping to do...maybe next week.