ATTENTION KMART SHOPPERS!

Christmas is over for another year.  I make it through, down to the wire once again.  I only have one meltdown through this whole process, and it happens on Sunday, two days before Christmas.

Let me be clear here - I could have melted down about a lot of things: Running out of gift tags, the ridiculous price of stick-on bows, the ink that ran from a silk-screen design on an expensive white lacrosse shirt, I don't get the chance to bake the apple pie, I forget to watch any of the twenty-four hours of A Christmas Story, the last present arrives Christmas Eve via snail mail, I spend the entire week before Christmas working on school stuff instead of holiday family stuff, and my furnace shits the bed again for the fortieth time.  There are more things on the list, but if I don't stop now, I'll cry.

Only one thing really pisses me off, though.  Shopping at Kmart.  It isn't the shopping part since I only need a collapsible gate to fit in a doorway and I find it instantly and it's only $11.99.  What gets under my skin is the check-out.  That's right, the idiot running the register who decides it is time to go home right before the order in front of mine.  That idiot.  But her leaving-in-the-midst-of-a-line-with-no-backup stupidity isn't even the part that sparks my ire.  It is something far more sinister, far more moronic.

She rings through the guy in front of me, who has a few items, when she knows he needs a price check.

That's right, I am standing there with one item, cash in my hand, and she decides to send a rookie for a price check.  That's what pisses me off.

The shopper in front of me has three items, one of which is the butt-ugliest, cheapest piece-of-crap apron I have ever seen in my entire life.  And he is buying it.  Dear God, I hope this isn't a present for his wife lest she poison him at Christmas dinner, and rightfully so; I would testify at her trial in her defense.  This guy looks at the apron, looks at the cashier, looks at the apron, and says, "I don't know the price on this, and none of 'em had prices."

The obvious question here would be:  "If none of 'em had prices, why the fuck are you attempting to buy one?"

Miss More-Ancient-Than-Dirt makes a phone call for a price check and then we all wait.  And wait.  And wait some more.  Then we wait longer.  We start chatting because we now officially have been together in line longer than Brittney Spears stays in a marriage.  Finally, we do a lot more of what we've been doing: We wait.

Along comes a teenaged boy who is so young I'm not even certain he has armpit hair yet, and he takes the apron and presumably goes off to that section of the store.  Presumably.  But not actually.

Five, possibly eight, minutes later he returns and says to the guy, "Do you remember where you got this from?"

Moronic Customer Man replies, "No."

Dude!  Truly?  You have three fucking items.  Three.  You cannot remember where one of those three came from?  Did it accidentally attach itself to you via static electricity when you walked by?

Teen Stupid disappears for parts unknown, finally comes back, and he announces the apron costs $12.99.  Personally I would protest that price as I'm quite certain he just pulled that number out of his ass.  That apron shouldn't be a penny more than $5.99.  The gate I am buying costs less money than that poor excuse for a frock.

The woman behind me, who also has three items, used to work retail management, has a daughter who manages a Wal-Mart, is from the Dominican Republic, etc., and I know all this because we just spent twenty-five minutes of our lives standing in this line attempting to check out.  We discuss the fact that both of us, being former retail middle-management, would ring through another customer and then another while Prince Price Check is off pretending he is actually working.

Up to this point, I am merely seething.  I have places to go, people to see, and things to do.  All I need is this damn gate, I have cash, and I can see my car through the plate glass window beyond the registers.  I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  All of us in line can see it as the apron has indeed been priced.

Just as we're all breathing that collective sign of relief, Miss Matilda Fuck-Face Cashier asks, "And what department do I ring this under?"

My breathing hitches and I feel my throat closing.

"Seasonal," replies the pretend Kmart employee who obviously wears the store's uniform as a fashion statement. 

Again there is a collective and audible sigh from the crowd.

"Which department number is that?" Granny Clerk asks.

No no no no no no no.  Don't say it.  Don't even think it.  Walk away.  Walk away now.

Alas, this is my life we're talking about.  Of course this problem isn't resolved, because Acne Boy responds, "I don't know."  Oh frig oh frig oh frig oh frig oh frig.  "I can go check for you!"  And he's off faster than honeymoon pajamas.

I try to quell what happens next.  I truly do.  After all, I have been quelling my rage since I left the house.  I despise shopping.  I think it is probably one of the stops in Dante's Inferno.  The man who is trying to buy this horrid excuse for a present suddenly looks away from me.  The woman behind me keeps babbling to the cashier over and over again, "Just ring him out.  Ring him out.  Just finish his order, ring the rest of us through, and let's go." 

I feel it rising in my throat, and I start twitching.  Like vomit, the vitriol explodes from the inside out.  At the top of my lungs and to no one and everyone, I scream, "MOTHERFUCKER!"

I don't know why this word comes out nor what on earth motherfuckers might have to do with a Kmart price check, but there it is, like Ralphie when he leads us to believe he says fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuudge when in reality he says FUCK. 

Everyone stops moving for a moment, and I'm reasonably certain that they all stop breathing because I hear the unanimous sound of sucking wind followed by absolute silence.  The man who has been trying to buy an un-priced item moves two steps stage right.  The babbling Dominican former retail manager moves two steps stage left.  The cashier can't move anywhere because she is stuck at her station, but she rings the man out, rings in my one item, and takes the cash I wave at her in my fisted hand. 

I wish my line cohorts a blessed holiday season, then I run to my car, making sure store security isn't chasing me down.  I continue on with my errands, the wooden gate clanking quietly in the back seat every time I drive over a bump (which in Lowell means every foot or so).

I swear to you it has been the only time I lose it this Christmas season.  I know, I know; Santa is watching me, but it all works out in the end -- I get the gate, I make it through Christmas, and I'm reasonably sure I won't be shopping at Kmart anytime soon.