The Christmas Season is a limbering giant of spend-dom and
unforgiving on the bowels - kinda like a massive night at
the pub with old college friends.
I am in Ottawa now and Sarah and I are about to head out
into this wintry nation's cap and do some serious spending.
I've already had a coffee...but I need another. I can feel the
exhaust itch of drippy, brown mall parking lots, devoid of
any light, crawling up the inside of my shirt. I can sense the
over-dressed, over-jewelled fifty-something perfume lady
at The Bay stepping out to ask me if I would like to try a
sample of some awfully throat-enclosing, over-flowered
scent that I basically already bathed in by standing within
a 5 foot zone of her. I can already envision the long lines
at cash registers with impatient man-children standing
in them, tweeting on their mobile devices in their trench
coats while jingling their pocket change as their
countenances seem to say 'Ha ha - I'm already in line.
It will be much longer when YOU go to buy anything,
sucker.' I can hear the squeaky rubber wheels of baby
strollers being used as battering rams to get through
people at a faster pace with mothers sipping starbucks
leaving trace lipstick on their white foam mocha skinny
lids.
And then I awake - and I realize - I am still here in my
parent's house - typing at their computer.
We haven't even left yet. Oh joy that is to come.
