- December 18, 2024
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When my wife, Hailey, and I walk into a store last week, she has a spreadsheet open on her phone.
“Our mission — ” she begins.
I helpfully finish her sentence: “— should we choose to accept it … “
But this is no Tom Cruise movie.
“Haha,” she says with neither mercy nor mirth, “you have no choice.“
Our mission is to purchase several small gifts for our children to fulfill the expectations of quantity that have been established over the years, thanks to spreadsheets. I am to scour the shelves and identify which items will cause the widest smiles on our children’s faces. I add another criterion: for the least amount of money.
None of the gifts are to be embarrassing in any way, nor noisy.
Hailey has a supernatural ability to discern the worthiness of a gift. All I can do is guess. Most of the time, when I pick up an option, I turn to Hailey, hoping for an approving nod.
“How about this?” I say. “For Grant?”
No, she indicates with her eyes, that is not correct. But, she says, “It’s up to you.”
Back on the shelf it goes.
Amazing! I think. How does she know?!
Next: an alien on a magnet.
No, Hailey suggests gently, with malice toward none.
I find myself wandering the store, looking to the bounteous shelves for guidance, trying to feel something, like Inigo Montoya closing his eyes and following his sword through the forest in “The Princess Bride.” Whatever my shopping cart bumps into next, I’m buying it.
I call out to the ghosts of Christmas presents: Which cheapo toy is speaking to me?
Well, lots of them do, is the thing. Let’s face it: My gift-giving sense is underdeveloped, like the Grinch’s heart in the first act of that one great heist movie.
At one point, about 14 hours into our shopping expedition, I see a coffee cup, half consumed, on a shelf. It was garbage, plain and simple, left by some past husband as an offering for some future husband. To be helpful, I look around for a garbage can. Seeing none, I leave the cup on the shelf.
We walk through aisles upon aisles of brightly colored candy goo, candy juice, candy that looks like hamburgers and fries. Willy Wonka would faint in this store.
Last, but not least, is the checkout: the sentry, the place of payment, Michael at the pearly gates, the last obstacle between me and The Outside.
On the sidewalk, I fall to my knees, hands toward the sky, like Tim Robbins at the end of “The Shawshank Redemption.”
Christmas is upon us! And we are ready!
