Grinch Flinch

I’m a certifiable Grinch, steeped in decades of kamikaze holiday shopping, post-Santa returns and credit card debt.  What disturbs me isn’t the holidays, but the holidaze.  In recent years, I’ve survived the season by shopping online, giving gift cards and utilizing a Christmas Club account at my credit union. From Halloween to New Years, I avoid malls and shop, if necessary, at the crack of dawn or during Letterman.

While traveling for work this week, I found myself in a 3^rd floor hotel room with a view of the region’s premier shopping Mecca.  Zipping off my favorite knee-high, 4.5” heeled boots after a 12 hour day, I glanced out over its parking lot….a seething hornet’s nest of crazed shoppers and frenzied drivers trying to escape as Mall security bolted the doors.  I called room service back, added a double on the rocks to my dinner request and pulled all the drapes.  I slept with nightmares of Bad Santa pinning me in a Macy’s dressing room as Bank of America cackled Ho-Ho-Ho outside the door. 

I woke exhausted and peeked through a slit in the curtains.  Empty!  Except for the early fringe of mall employee cars, the lot was clear.  If I spritzed through the shower, skipped breakfast and checked out with no make-up I just might make it out alive.

But I’m a rational Grinch.  How bad could it be if I just popped into the mall early….before all the real crazies arrived.  After all, Bad Santa was just a movie, my BoA card was locked in my file cabinet at home and there were a couple of hard-to-shop for people still giftless on my list.  Irrational rationalization.

I nabbed the first parking spot next to “handicapped” and breathed the shopper’s prayer. “God grant me the serenity to accept deep discounts while counting my change; the courage to exchange the things I buy before I find what I really want; and the wisdom to know the difference.”  Locking my Grinch garb deep in the trunk, I strutted like Jessica Simpson as timely Mall security flung open the jaws of debt......just for me.  90 minutes later and half a paycheck lighter I shielded myself with overstuffed bags against the incoming tide of suckers, making a beeline for my car.

As I sat at the exit traffic light feeling bruised but victorious, I congratulated myself for finishing off my holiday gift list without buying new “Jessica” shoes for myself.  My prayer had been answered. Then a little voice in my head whispered a line from one of my favorite Jack Nicholson movies, As Good As It Gets.  When asked by his publisher’s receptionist, “How do you write women so well?”  romance novelist Melvin Udall sneers, “I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability.”  I think holiday retailers saw that movie, too.