Christmas Time is Nigh

This saturday is "guys shopping day". Another traditional annual event where I and 3 of my closest buddies get together early to go shopping for our wives and loved ones. I usually drive, since I am the only one with a car big enough to hold us that is not despoiled by dog hairs on the seats. Four of us (George, Bill, the other Dennis and Me) have been doing this every saturday-before-Christmas for about ten years. We get to the Chestnut Hill Mall (or sometimes the Atrium) before the parking lot becomes too crowded. Then we spend 2 hours trolling the mall with our gift lists.

None of us are typical shoppers - we are dressed like middleaged straight guys - Dockers, Sweatshirt, Baseball Cap, work boots - and so our questions to the perfume counter clerks ("Got anything that doesn't smell like a fart?" or to the sales person at Victoria Secrets "What have you got in a triple X Teddie?") are often met with fear and distrust.

Then, it's over to Newton at our favorite Irish pub for Bloody Mary's. They open at 11 and we are usually their first customers. Sometimes, after a quaff or two we will then stroll across the street to check out the Antique Mall at Echo Bridge. (This is mainly George's influence, he likes to surprise his wife with some antique treasure such as used irish silver fish forks or jewelry that was old when grandma was a girl. I never buy anything, but I am amused and entertained by the sheer variety of old china, crystal and other junk that some people will pay real money to possess. I am firmly a here-and-now person, and I don't think old hunks of junk have any monetary value. I like stainless steel and teflon and battery powered clocks and modern refrigeration. )
Anyhow, we spend an hour or so, looking at the discarded legacy of the ancient world. Then we trundle back to the Pub for beer and burgers. Actually, I am the only one who still drinks more than one beer nowadays - I think the others are on medications that do not agree with alcohol. (George says he is on the Atkins Diet and recently eschews the ambient sugar in alcoholic drinks. He has lost weight. In fact, with his bushy moustache, he looks a lot like a Saddam Hussein.)

After lunch we each go home with our bags of presents, which we hide in the closet until xmas (we get them wrapped at the Mall), and nap on the couch while pretending to watch the NFL game. Somebody noted that since none of us have jobs this year, we don't really need to do it on a saturday. But traditions are traditions, dammit.