Houston is the fourth largest city in America…
Some of you may not have the distinct pleasure of shopping at a downtown mall just a few days before Christmas.
In my naive state, I thought that because it was mid-workday, the mall wouldn’t be as crowded as it would be later in the day. The terrifying thing is that I was probably right.
My first moments within the vacinity of the mall dropped me into a movie-moment. With my blinker on, I waited to turn left into a parking spot. I wanted to wait until a car passed me…. and as I waited, I watched that same car look at me and pull into my parking spot. All I could do was stare. And stare. And stare. She eventually looked over at my mouth-agape look and started to put her car in reverse. I drove on. Perhaps she would feel badly about her obvious jerk move. Merry Christmas, after all.
Once inside the mall, it looked like a scene from a monster movie. Everyone running, dragging crying children, and frantically pushing their ‘competition’ out of the way. Survival of the fittest, right? Right.
Oh, and while bobbing and weaving to get away from the terrifying crowd, you have to dodge a train. A train! As if the mall weren’t a challenge enough, now we have a man who hates his job (I like to imagine what major he had in college…Philosophy? Teaching? Ooo fine arts!), but has the power to drive a four foot train throughout the crowded halls of the mall. And, let’s add to it by putting small, sticky children inside the train…adding to the ever present possibility of child-vomit.
So…
Frantic Parents
Crying, sticky, sugar-crazed children
Red-eyed, manic train engineer (Did I mention it’s a grown man who has to curl up into a child sized train?)
And me.
When a mother grabbed my arm and asked me through gritted teeth, “WHERE is Santa? He’s suppose to be here. He’s not here. WHERE IS HE?” as if I were a jolly elf representative for altruistic Big Guy…I decided that Cyber Monday and I were going all the way next year.
All. the. way.
