Dear Crabby, I know you can help me out here – I hate this time of year with all the shopping my wife wants to do. What can I do to get out of it?
Sincerely, Hideout Henry
Dear Hideout,
I know all about the Christmas shopping season and how woman like to shop for hours on end. When I was a younger man, I came up with all sorts of antics to get out of this ritual. One year I pretended to be sick for like three weeks and said I was just not able to go out and enjoy all that holiday activity with her. This worked well until my friend called with tickets for the Pistons game. My wife answered the phone and told him I was too sick to go out. Bummer, that one backfired on me. Another year I decided to plow through and try to get all of our shopping done on that Black Friday after Thanksgiving and be done with it. I ended up getting into a fight with an old lady in line at Kmart, then I bought a nightgown that was two sizes too small for my mother-in-law, and I ran out of time to even get my own kids anything. That was a waste of time. The money I supposedly saved was a loss. I ended up spending double to go back and correct my mistakes later.
So, as the years went on, I tried a few more wild tricks that I had dreamt up. One time I suggested that we not buy gifts for anyone and just donate to a charity instead. My wife liked that idea so much that she called the church and signed me up to serve at some sort of women’s tea event. Then, to make matters worse, she said that since that didn’t cost any money, we could go buy gifts for all the family members anyway.
The last scheme I came up with was the final straw. I told my wife to give me a list of what everyone wanted and that I would take care of the whole shopping deal myself. So she reluctantly did what I asked and sat back. I had this young whippersnapper working in the same office as me back then and he told me he could buy everything I wanted on the Internet while saving me time and money. I gave him the list and told him to make it happen. Later that day, he gave me my paper and card back and said it was all set. The items would be arriving at my house shortly. Well they did, but I guess there was some confusion. My granddaughter asked for a Hannah Montana shirt, but instead she got a Joe Montana shoe in the mail. Who would pay $500 for one shoe anyway? I don’t care if some fellow wore it in some football game or not, it was disgusting. After that ordeal, I went to the kid in my office and demanded that he make sure that all the other items were correct. Well, they were correct all right, and due to arrive on December 30 as scheduled. After I screamed and hollered at him for a while, he told me there was nothing else he could do for me. So I ended up shopping every night the week before Christmas and hearing about it for months after as items were out of stock and we had to pay higher than usual prices for the things we wanted. Ultimately, I learned a great lesson: Just be honest with the old lady and tell her how you feel. I told my wife I really didn’t like the holiday shopping thing and she understood. So now we compromise, and I set aside about 3 or 4 evenings throughout the season to do some shopping with her. Good luck and happy shopping my friend. Remember, “A happy wife equals a happy life.”
Sincerely, Dear Crabby
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