Light and hearty observations from a fat and ugly guy. Home of hackneyed drivel and ersatz-existentialist effluence. Choleric biliousness a specialty, since 1958.

Shop til ya drop

From the London Daily Mail, today: "British psychologist Dr David Lewis found the stress men experience while Christmas shopping ranks level with that felt by a police officer dealing with an angry mob."

When I was a kid, I lived in Asia for 5 years (see post below) and loved every single minute of all of it except the annual trip to the "International Center" in Hong Kong (harbor view, left). We'd be going between Japan and Singapore, so instead of flying directly, mummykins would organize a fucking stop-over in Hong Kong to go fucking shopping.

This "International Center" was 5 levels of shops--hundreds of stores. A yenta's paradise. My mother would make me and my brothers sit/stand in each of these goddamm stores while she cleaned 'em out. She also liked to find shit she wanted us to try on and instead of being cool about it, she'd scream and yell across the store: "Nigel! Nigel! NIGEL! GET OVER HERE NOW TO TRY ON THIS LOVELY SHIRT! ISN'T IT LOVELY? IT'S GOT BUNNIES AND FLOWERS ON IT!!" at the top of her lungs. Everything she wanted us to try on sucked and was wussy (i.e. bunnies and flowers).

Adding insult to injury, there were times when the dressing rooms were all busy so she'd make us change RIGHT THERE ON THE SHOWROOM FLOOR! I mean, I'm 12 years old, trying to figure out what my dick is for, waiting for chest hair to sprout and voice to deepen, pimples beginning to show on my ugly face....jeez, can you begin to imagine the pain here?

I kid you not, these shopping trips lasted a minimum 7 hours. To this day, I hate shopping, and I'm not so sure how I feel about mummykins, either.

Merry fucking Christmas.

posted by Nigel St.John Regina Smegmatica Howle-Raines @ 11:17 AM