after-Christmas shopping

My daughter received a gift card to Kohl's Department Store for Christmas. Against Clark Howard's advice that we wait until after New Year's to go clothes shopping, we went. The gift card was burning a hole in her pocket.

DD1 was still at her friend's house after spending the night, so it was just DD2, myself, Little Man and Little Guy. I wasn't really in the mood to go - I have been fighting migraine headache for a couple days and heck, I'm hardly ever in the mood to go anywhere...I'm very much a homebody. But once you drag me out of the house, I have fun.

I'm glad I had the good sense to get some lunch before we braved the store. Mmmmm...O'Charleys...don't know if you have them where you live, but it was a 20 minute wait to eat but still worth it. I had the Chicken Parmesan and a Pepsi.

When we got to Kohl's, I looked and looked for a shopping cart...none in sight! Guess where most of them were?...people in the Returns line were using them so they wouldn't have to hold the items they were returning. How about saving a few for shoppers actually coming in to spend money?!? (grumble grumble grunt). I felt every bit of Little Guy's 27 pounds in my arms.
I figured he could walk some and I could carry him some of the time. "Ugh my back! " "Oh well, I need to work out anyway" "that's it...this place is going on my LIST!" were some of my thoughts.

Oops! - you don't know what the "LIST" is, do you? I'll explain. When a business ticks me off, it goes on an very real, but invisible mental list of places to which I will not return. Often, if the business goes on the "LIST," it never has a chance of getting off the list and back into my good graces, but sometimes it's just a momentary irritation like the lack of carts. The dearth of carts wasn't totally the businesses' fault in this case, so Kohl's is back off the dreaded list. As if the CEO of Kohl's is really losing sleep tonight over whether they're on my list or not! R-i-i-i-ght.

Now, the fracas that ensued at the checkout was the result of someone cutting in the line. It was tense but interesting daytime drama. You should have seen the sparks of fury in the woman's eyes. I was glad they weren't directed toward me. I wondered where the "goodwill toward men" of the season was. I guess the lady had been stepped on for the final time that day. All I know is, there's never been anything in a retail store that I would want so much or I would have to checkout so quickly that I'd need to be that hateful acting.

Well to sum it all up, Little Guy was greatly admired by a lot of the ladies in the line, until he noticed so many people looking at him, and he burst into hysterics. I was really grateful to be at the front of the line then, and so was everyone else.

I learned my lesson. I'm staying out of the stores until 2007.