Ho! Ho! No! Christmas shopping drives me crackers
I couldn’t avoid it any longer. All the tell-tale signs were there. the girls had unloaded a dozen carrier bags of colourfully wrapped boxes around the christmas tree, her indoors was feverishly wrapping presents on the kitchen table and every day more parcels and boxes were being delivered. All the ominous pointers were directing me to do what all blokes hate most . . . christmas shopping. I had intended to venture forth into the maelstrom and chaos just a few days before the big day, but now, armed with a long list of what looks to me to be meaningless tat and dross, the boss insists I advance to contact the enemy head on. It starts at the bus stop, because no way will I even attempt to drive and park at the retail park or shopping megastore, and the bus restricts me to what I can comfortably carry home. At the bus stop, an old biddy smiles and tries to start a conversation. Hell’s teeth! do I look that old? this does not bode well. the town centre is a seething hive of shoppers, some purposefully heading hither and thither into the shops and stores, many loaded down with boxes and bags. Armed with my list, I venture into a warm, well lit emporium where I know I will have to part with a sizeable chunk of change, for this is where I can get my beloved a bottle of her favourite perfume. ‘What? How much?!’ that represented about four months’ wages when I was an apprentice, now, 50-plus years down the line, it’s at the bottom end of what you can pay for a bottle of scent. the toy shop is huge. I settle for a couple of plastic things which fire foam cylinders and resemble something from Star Wars, both for my two grandsons. their dads will love me. now I deserve a bit of me-time. I head to the bookshop, and it’s a snake pit of bodies. I pick two books, and hope that I don’t get the same ones for christmas. I buy the other items scribbled down by the wife, stop off at the cigar store, for my daily cheroot, then fight my way through the throng, back to the bus station. Back at levy towers, I flop down in a muck sweat, the bags overflowing on to the kitchen floor. that’s it for another year. I have no intention of doing any more of that for many long months. ‘tony, you forgot your mum’s present, you’d better go back.’ nooooooo!
Tony Levy, Wednesfield, W. Mids.