Last-Minute Squishmas Shoppin'

Well, shoppin' this time of year is a sprint, really.

Hiya, Friends!  Well, as you know, it's a week before Christmas.  We have seven days left to shop, so that's what I'm doin' today.  I'm shopping at the Little Kid Big Box Store Supercenter.

Now, you know how it is, this time of year.  People go a little crazy, wanting to get the best deal, wanting to get everything done and get home in time to get the roast in the oven.  Little kids are no different from Big People, Big People.  We want those things, too.  Even the getting home in time to get the roast in the oven.

Oh, yes, we Little Kids just love to cook roasts.  I'm partial to using my slow cooker, because then I can just put it in, set it, and forget it.  But I hafta admit that oven-roasted roasts do have wonderful flavor and richness.  Either way, you've gotta make your side-dishes, and that's something that worries me when I'm out and about and I have a roast in the slow cooker or the oven.

I believe I have everything I need, so I'm heading to the checkout!

Sorry.  I got off-topic.  I know.  This is a thing with me.  But when I shop, I get hungry, and when I get hungry, all's I can think about is food, and I said something about the roast, and how to roast, and it just got me all hungry.

Don't things like that happen to you, Big People?  Don't they?

Well, anyway, like I was saying, we little kids can get a little crazy this time of year, too, because we have a lot on our mind while we're shopping, too.

For instance, today, I'm trying to stick to my list, which I made out to be in the order in which I'd encounter my items in the Little Kid Big Box Store Supercenter.  I did this in order to accomplish a handful of things: first, it'll help me get around the store faster.  Second, if I'm getting around the store faster, I'm less likely to stop and tarry over pretty baubles I don't need and which are not on my list.  Third, it'll help me not buy things not on my list, so I don't spend money I don't need to spend.

Oh, no. I forgot my Secret Santa gift!

I guess that was three things I was accomplishing.  Not necessarily a whole handful, unless you take into account that those are three BIG things, and I have little hands.  Strike this digression.  I stand by my original assertion that my filling out my shopping list in store-order accomplishes a handful of things.  You bet I stand by it!

So.  It's a pretty brilliant plan, don'tchya think?  I think in modern Big-People-parlance, you'd call it "Totes Brills."  Isn't it?!

Except, those people in charge at the Little Kid Big Box Store Supercenter went and changed things up since the last time I was in there.  They did a floor move.  They did a retail re-set. 

In other words, those jerks messed up my Totes McGotes Brills system, and insteadda me walking into that dang ol' store like a big, stinky cheese, going around fast and being guided by my list that was written out in the order of the store's aisles, I went into that store and felt a little bit like I caught amnesia for a little bit.  Things were familiar enough to make me wonder if I dreamed the way things used to be in the Little Kid Big Box Store Supercenter, but they were different enough to render my super-cool-in-store-order list just a super-uncool-not-in-store-order shopping list.

I don't wanna go back into the fray! I just need to sit down!

Oh, Friends, it was sucha mess.  Things that were on regular shelves in one part of the store are now on endcaps in other parts of the store.  Things that were on endcaps in such-and-such department were relocated to bins in the middle of different aisles.  There's stuff stacked on pallets in the middle of walkways.  And that's part of the display.  They're not going to move the stuff off the pallets and onto shelves or endcaps, because the pallets are those things' shelves and endcaps!

Because my list was no longer in the order of the way things are put up on the shelves, I had to go around the store, hunting and searching on my list.  I dropped my pen I was using to cross off the things on my list that I found, and it rolled under a heavy pallet stacked high with blocks.  Heavy, heavy blocks. 

Like I said. Shoppin' this time of year is a marathon.  Hoo boy.

So I was pretty much going around the store, trying to guess where things were, unsure of what on my list I'd gotten, what I still needed to get.  I backtracked.  I missed things.  There were lots and lots of people in the store, too, so there was that.  The crowds in the aisles were thick as pea soup.

Then, I thought I got all the way to the end of my list, and I fought my way to the checkouts, got almost up to the endcaps that make sort of a chute to the register, and I realized I'd forgotten to buy my present for the office Secret Santa.

Oh, the horror, Friends.  I had to leave the checkout lanes and go back into the roiling roil of the store. 

I guess it's a good thing I put my roast in the crock pot with plenty of liquid.  I think it's gonna be a long day of last-minute Squishmas Shoppin' for this girl.