I went Christmas shopping on August 31st,
but I have a good excuse. It wasn't
intentional. I swear to you, I am not
"one of those types." Okay, I
do have Christmas music on shuffle on my MP3 player - Yes, you heard me, an MP3
player. And I do sing along when the Messiah choruses come on, and, yes, I
know all the alto parts by heart and even the second soprano to Lift Up Your Heads. My holiday wrapping paper and supplies are
out all year, readily available, and I keep an ongoing list on my computer of
gifts and recipients that gets updated every year. But I swear, I am NOT "one of those
types."
You see, it all started with another bout
of pneumonia. I am like the Crash Test Dummy of Pneumonia. I've had pneumonia
probably eight times in the last two dozen years, and it has become
frighteningly obvious to me and a marvel to my doctors that the pneumonia
vaccine doesn't seem to prevent any bouts of the damn disease. It starts as a sneeze and quickly turns
deadly within days, or it sits in my lungs like the stealthy villain it is and
slowly suffocates me. This last episode
left me feeling pretty good, actually. I
suspected I might have pneumonia again after nearly two weeks of hacking up
pieces of lung tissue, but other than not being able to sleep or breathe, all
systems seemed normal.
Before I went to get the diagnosis (and the
Z-Pack, which I happen to think is Food of the Gods), I denied that I was ill,
denied that my last hurrah of the summer would be spent on the couch, and drove
to Maine, phlegm-spewing and all, to visit my sister. After all, we've been sharing diseases since
childhood - flus, chicken pox, diphtheria…
She had the weenie German measles; I had the real enchilada measles. My sister (not the one with the soggy cukes in
her fridge), unlike me, is a compassionate nurturer, and she fed me tea and
took me out to lunch so I could have soup partially because she felt sorry for
me and partially so I wouldn't spread the plague all over her house.
And that's when the trouble started.
A few stores down from the Panera, where
met her husband for lunch, in the same strip mall so we didn't even have to
move the car, is a Michael's. For those
un-indoctrinated souls, Micheal's, much like its bastard twin AC Moore, is the
Holy Grail of craft stores. Mind you,
I'm not exceptionally crafty. I wish I
were and I harbor great delusions that I am, but my sister Andrea is the
Crafting Genius. Anyone else is just a
peon at her feet, and every glue stick she touches turns to gold. She's like Rumpelstiltskin and Midas all
rolled into one only pretty … and young … and a girl.
Our mission at Michaels' was fairly
innocuous: Check out the Halloween stuff, which we did. I bought pumpkin glasses, a styrofoam skull,
and a severed arm with a fake bloody hand on the end. These items will come in very handy in my
classroom this fall, especially the severed limb which will bear a sign:
"HAND in your homework."
Then, we heard it. The sound.
Little jingle bells and the sound of Andy Williams (yup, the one married
to Claudine Longet who killed the Olympic skier Spider Sabich) singing,
"It's the most wonderful tiiiiiiime of the year," filled our
brains. Though we circled the store
multiple times to escape, it was of no use.
The suction of a decent Christmas sale can be ridiculously strong and
torturous. Before long, we were
attacking every Christmas display, every Christmas bin, every Christmas
decoration, every Christmas craft item in the store. It was almost terrifying except that we knew
Santa was watching because he sees us when we're sleeping and he knows when
we're awake and he also follows us when we're shopping in craft stores. We did not want to let him down.
Collectively we spent about $150 at the
craft store. We each bought Halloween items
and even birthday stuff, but mainly this was Reindeer Booty and we had tinsel
in our veins. We hauled our loot back to
my sister's car, parked cleverly between Panera and Michael's where no one
would suspect our sad addiction to craftmania.
We thought we'd gotten away clean.
Until … there must always be an
"until" in stories such as this … until we walked into her
house. We had been in Michael's for so
long that her husband had already finished work and was home well before us. He saw the bags, scowled, and shook his head
sternly. "What have you done?"
he lamented.
And that's when the façade cracked and the
light of truth shone through. My sister,
who also knows all the alto chorus parts and every alto solo and some soprano
solos from Handel's Messiah, admitted
defeat. I hung my head like a wet dog
who just shook pool water all over the fine furniture. I AM "one of those types," those
holiday sickos who wish "Merry Christmas" with more gusto than a
demented Frosty, and this malady seems to run in the family.
It really is the most wonderful time of the year. My shopping bag from Michael's supports that,
and my MP3 player can name that tune in three notes. If it hadn't been for the pneumonia, we
probably would've been on a long, healthy walk, instead. Thank you, faulty lungs, for a productive,
prosperous, and purely magical afternoon.
