Run Run Rudolph! (You’re About To Be Trampled To Death By Hundreds Of Insane Holiday Shoppers)…

(Ed. Note: This post will probably be served best as a cautionary tale to those of you planning to do your Holiday shopping at an actual retail store this season.)

I made the mistake of attempting to do Christmas shopping for my respective family at the Paramus Park mall in Northern New Jersey. I was supposed to go with a couple of my friends but they bailed on me at the last minute, leaving me to brave certain madness on my own. This proved to be even bigger a mistake than I originally began to think when I was stuck in traffic just beyond the boro of Saddle River line. First off, let me just say that I hate traffic and more specifically, I hate bad drivers. Northern New Jersey is full of bad drivers and that pisses me off more than anything else. I’m normally a really calm, easy-going type of guy but something happens to me when I’m behind the wheel. I instantly hate every other driver. The main reason I have such road rage is that I feel horrible driving is not something that should not be easily forgiven. When you suck at something like sports or your mundane office job, you are only harming yourself (specifically, your ego). When you suck at driving, however, you’re endagering lives. So when someone tries to make a left turn at a four way intersection when their arrow is in the process of turning from yellow to red and they think that means they should still have clearance to completely cut everyone off, nearly killing someone coming in the other direction when that other person has the green light…yeah, that is really not cool. It’s at those moments when I proceed to power the window down and scream my head off at them (this goes for old ladies and pimple-faced wieners alike).

So, I’m sitting in horrendous, annoying traffic awaiting my arrival at the mall which I know will also be a horrible experience. And when your mind realizes that you are enduring something you hate in order to do something you REALLY hate, it’s immediate reaction is to shut off and terminate your life, effectively saving you from dealing with your enormous stupidity.

I finally arrive at the mall at around 1:30pm. Now, being the forgetful fella I am, I forgot that I was arriving at a mall in the middle of a Saturday during prime time of the holiday shopping season. Yeah…bad idea, to say the least. It was only after I pulled into the parking lot for the first time that I realized how shitty my life was about to become for the next few hours. As I was battling the endless amount of assholes prowling the parking lots for an available space, I saw one individual that seemed to encompass everything about holiday shopping people seem to hate. It was a black car attempting to park rear-end first into a spot that was currently occupied by someone in a green car that was trying to back out and leave. It seems the black car drove passed the green car only to realize that the green car was actually leaving. So, rather than just admit defeat and continue on, the black car decided to stop where he was, turn on his right blinker (the green car was located in a spot to his right) and wait while the green car left the spot. The problem with this plan (despite the obvious) is that he was stopping while there was a trail of cars behind him. So, the black car was now stopped, awaiting a possible vacant spot while causing a major traffic tram that would eventually stretch to the main road leading up to the mall. Not only that, he was actually blocking the green car from leaving because he didn’t pull up far enough! And, he can’t pull up anymore because there was another blue car already waiting for the green car to leave…and that car was actually waiting BEFORE the black car was! Horns began to blow and fists were shaking as hard as I’ve ever seen them shake. When I initially turned the corner, I was promptly greeted with this sad display of human interaction. After witnessing it for a little while, I desperatly wanted an alien ship to soar out of the sky, wipe us all out with it’s death ray, and end this misery that is holiday shopping.

I managed to find a spot that was miles from the mall but since I haven’t gnawed my hands off yet, I was still in good shape walking into the main entrance. The mall itself resembled the running of the bulls in Spain. It was endless sea of people running to and from for reasons that have yet to be defined in any rational matter. The retail companies of America have made us psychotic on a level that is really just ridiculous. People will actually severly injure someone else for a talking doll just so their bratty kid will play with it for two days after Christmas.

I raced around the stores scapping up some pretty good gifts (I won’t go into details on this because the people I am buying the gifts for will be reading this). I had almost escaped without any long term emotional scars when I suddenly had a desire to shop for some winter apparel from Gap (damn promotional posters). I went into the store and found some nice gear, paid, and left. This quick visit to Gap is crucial, however. Had I left the mall before going to the Gap I would have avoided the following incident…

I was beginning to make my way towards the exit when a group of young kids came out of a toy store followed by a large group of adults. A couple of the kids were running and proceeded to continue their stride directly into my legs, nearly tripping me and causing me to spill my bags onto the ground. This, obviously, was frustrating because I had a fragile gift in one of my bags that was probably shattered. I guess I showed a little of that frustration in my face when it happend and apparently, one of the parents of the little rat that ran into me didn’t like this facial expression. When I bent down to start collecting my bags, the mother yelled out, “What was that face for sir?” Sensing a possible conflict with a soccer mom, I just looked down and continued to collect my things, all the while just hoping she doesn’t say anything else to me. But, I was wrong to hope for that. “They’re just kids, sir. They don’t need you ruining their Christmas by making them feel bad. Just pick up your bags and go, please sir.”

It was at this point that my mind completely shut off. By that I mean that I couldn’t piece the logic of those statements fast enough to have a rational response. All I could do was stare up at the woman with a “are you fucking kidding me?” expression and not move. She stared right back at me, nodding her head in agreement with her own moronic existence. For a few moments (you can insert your own idea of the amount of time “a few moments” actually feels like) that was all I could do was stare.

I will now list the events that transpired after these few moments in chronoligical order because I am honestly too tired to explain everything in detail like I have been doing:

My eventual response to the soccer mom: “How about we just accept it was an accident and agree you need to keep your mouth shut?”…

…Husband threatens to hurt me until the little kid “accidently” kicks me in the right shin…

…Sensing a greater incident unfolding, I gather my things and leave as quickly as possible. I look down to see my fragile gift has, in fact, shattered, and return to the store to return the gift where I was informed there were no returns on broken gifts from this particular retailer once they leave the store. Apparently I agreed to this when I bought the damn thing…

…More yelling ensues…

…Fed up, I leave the mall and muscle through more mental-illness-enducing traffic.

After reliving that day with this post right now, I have a sudden urge to find the man (or people) that invented Amazon.com and give him (or them) a big, tears-of-thankfulness filled hug and let them know they have saved my life from here on out.