Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Friday, December 19, 2003

My Own Personal Hell

Last night, while shopping for Christmas gifts, I began to understand what hell may very well be like for me if I were foolish enough to make the types of choices that would lead me there. For me, hell most likely will consist of the purse section at Liz Claiborne combined with a Fossil watch store.

In hell, I'm forced to shop with a woman* who can't decide...on anything. She's carrying around one absurdly expensive purse while looking at other almost identical purses with slightly different colors such as rose, mauve and desert pink. Each purse must be unpacked of its stuffing, hefted, gazed at and the like. Following this is the most dreaded question in the world, "What do you think of this one?" If I reply with the truth she will inflict upon me the "gaze of scorn" which will send lashing pain through my body. So I must grope for some sort of intelligent response.

Added to this is our companion. This is a person in her late teens or early twenties who must predicate every sentence with an emphatically pronounced "Dude!" She says things like, "Dude! Check out this purse! It's made of human flesh and is only a thousand dollars more than that one!" or "Dude! This watch is sooooo awesome! It shieks with all the sadness and remorse of the entire human race every time another soul enters the netherworld! Here, listen!" and "Dude! That demon over there is so fat! I've tried to tell her to diet but she's too stupid to listen to me!"

After a time we go over to the watches to find something that matches the purse. Of course, there isn't anything that matches just perfectly but I have to wait and be attentive while each watch of a nearly infinite number is tried on. Once it is realized that there isn't a perfect match for this purse the idea is changed to finding a watch she likes and then finding a purse that matches that. This engenders just a shade of hope but....well, you know how that's going to go on.

All the while this is taking place I can look out the window of the "shop" and see people riding by on their bikes on a perfect day.

So, I'll definitely be a good person. I'll eat my broccoli, keep up on my "honey-do" list and go to church every day. Anything to avoid this fate.

*This woman in no way, shape or form respembles my wife in attitude or behavior. My wife is a much better shopper than this. She only has to look at five or six purses, usually of markedly different color. Oh, and there's no "gaze of scorn."

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