Ahh... F'n Christmas. Where do I begin. As I may have mentioned before, or just cried out in my nightmares, I have a “Bad Mexican” side of the family and the “Good Mexican” side of the family. Most of my Good Mexicans have migrated up to the Seattle, Washington and Oregon area. They’re a Gypsy breed. They used to drag me cross country with them when I was barely a teenager, on crazy adventures to hunt down Indian Pow Wows and holistic retreats. I love them dearly and try to keep in touch with them as much as I can. The Bad Mexicans, however, will not leave. I have a gravitational pull that keeps at least a dozen of them living within a five-mile radius of me at any given time. I equate them to roaches. They’re lazy, overweight, ignorant, 300+ pounds and will probably outlive me.There was no way in getting out of going to the Bad Mexican’s home for Christmas. Lacking the energy to start an assembly line and quality masa resources, I made the mistake of saying I was going to buy and bring tamales. Mind you, I mentioned this WEEKS prior to Christmas when at the time, my world was somewhat stable. All I heard about for the ensuing days was, “Are you still bringing the tamales? Don’t forget the tamales. How many tamales are you bringing?” and so on. Here it was the morning of December 24th already and I wasn’t even done shopping, let alone looking forward to making the trek to East L.A. to purchase quality tamales for the ingrates.
Work let out just after high noon. How very appropriate. I was terrified of fighting the crowds in the malls. I was aimless. Unprepared. Fearing last-minute sales of Sham Wows and Chia Pets. I jokingly told my Supervisor that I was going to end up at 7-11 for the remainder of my gifts and that everyone was going to get beef jerky. She laughed. Suddenly it didn’t seem so wrong.
I hit an ATM, fully depleting my bank account and circled the mall parking lot for 40 minutes. Christ. I walked into JCPenney’s clutching a half-ass written list on the back of a Carl’s Jr. receipt. I couldn’t find a thing that I needed or anything that made sense. I walked out in 10 minutes. I drove toward the freeway and tried talking myself into purchasing lotto tickets for everyone. I would pray for the best.
The second mall was more successful. I found almost everything I needed. I feared the Wal-Mart lot, but there actually wasn't as many people there as I thought there would be. I had to buy additional wrapping paper and bows. ON CHRISTMAS EVE! I wasn't alone but still, it's the principal of the matter. I used to laugh at 'those' people - out on Christmas Eve, hunting feverishly while I sipped on a warm Starbucks soy mocha and strolled the aisles looking for nail polish. Any other year, my shopping would have been complete by Halloween. I was that good. This year, it DID sneak up on me. Damn December 25th. I was increasingly gettin angrier by the minute.
I found a short checkout line. Two elderly Asian business men in cheap suits were completing their transaction, and a skinny thuggish black dude was directly ahead of me with a handful of items. Shweet. The check-out girl looked like Fiona from Shrek. I am not kidding. She was as slow as an ogre too. I couldn't figure out what the holdup was, the Suits didn't even have any items on the conveyer belt. They talked to each other in Japanese and grew increasingly louder. I poked at the wall of gum. My mind wandered.
"Isn't this some bullshit?! I HATE Christmas," said Skinny Black, aloud to the air. I avoided eye contact then I noticed the items placed on the belt directly after mine. A female had gotten in line behind me and steadily emptied her cart. An economy-sized bottle of generic bleach, Febreeze, Wrigley's gum, two of the largest economy boxes of Magnum condoms I've ever seen in my life, Pringles, an almost empty bottle of Welch's strawberry soda, mint dental floss... I became fixated on the bleach. And the condoms. Who in the hell needs that many condoms? What kind of party was she planning? Individually, these items were harmless. Combined, who knows what unearthly force they could unleash?
"This is some bullshit," Skinny Black's whisper faded out. "Do you see that?" he said through his teeth. Rubber Girl peered around me and looked toward the register at the Suits. The screen subtotal read: $7,000.00 in digital orange letters. "Sheeeeet, it's like that?" she said, cracking her gum. The suits appeared to be applying money to stack of gift cards. I counted seven cards which would mean, $1000.00 a card. On Christmas Eve, at 4:00 in the afternoon. Wow, if only I could have been thought of so much, yet so little with a Wal Mart gift card in the amount of more moolah than I had in my WaMu account.
"That's more than I make in a month!" said Skinny. Hm. Really?
Fiona the checker had a look on her face as if she needed to take a massive shit. Either no one had ever purchased gift cards from her before or she was completely burned out. The purchase finally went through and Skinny shifted his conversation from hating Christmas to not being able to afford anything. He and Rubber engaged in a lengthy conversation. They bonded. I just wanted out. I made it to my car and headed home. Ahhhhhhhhh..... I had forgotten the damn tamales *cue the rain* I was indeed in hell.
There was no way I was going to make the trip to Lilliana's on Cesar Chavez Ave. in Los Angeles. I called Zee, stressed, cursing, almost in tears. He talked me off of the ledge and recommended I stop by Diana's. The line was short with good reason. They were completely out of the pork variety of tamales (the best!). I ordered a dozen sweet and a dozen of both chicken and pork which cost me a half hour wait time. Finally, with a sack of tamales and hot salsa in tow, I headed to my parent's house then back to the apartment through the pouring rain. I flicked on the 24 hour marathon of "A Christmas Story" and began the daunting task of wrapping endless boxes of gifts.
What started out as a fanciful "Nightmare Before Christmas" decorations theme complete with special tree ornaments and flocked, boldly printed paper and ribbons ended with me slapping neon colored crushed bows from holidays past onto wrinkled Snoopy wrap. I finished just before midnight and swore that I would NEVER again wait until Christmas eve to finish shopping and all the rest of that crap. Lesson learned. Didn't even need a visit from Christmas ghosts to teach me that little kernel of wisdom.
