.
My Nighmare =
before Christmas
By David Ryan
Oregon Daily Emerald
To understand the holi
day season, I think it’s
best to look at scientific
experiments on rats. Particu
lariy me experiments vvnere an enor
mous quantity of rats are packed into a
small space and are observed to see
what kind of changes they undergo.
Actually, there were experiments like
that — so a television once told me —
and the rats ended up nibbling on each
other for a snack.
Alas, it doesn’t seem to me that dur
ing the holiday season human beings
are much more civilized than a bunch
of rats crammed into close quarters.
Witness the American cultural phe
nomena called "The Day After Thanks
giving.”
It s a day when otherwise indepen
dently thinking people cram them
selves into stores to buy, buy, buy in
preparation for their holiday of choice.
Marvel at the wonders it produces:
• The sticky, oozing hatred of the fel
low "holiday shopper” that emerges
when a person becomes trapped in line
after agonizingly slow-moving line.
• The formation of men stationed out
side Victoria’s Secrets everywhere,
kicking invisible pebbles while they
wait for loved ones — or at least ones
that will be loved once they exit the
store.
• Credit card debts.
Ah, yes.
The day after Thanksgiving is exhibit
A of the dark side of the holiday season,
and on Nov. 27 I had the right mixture
of stupidity, materialism, boredom,
money and curiosity to witness it first
hand. At the time I called my excursion
"running errands.”
My first stop ended up being Borders.
They sell books and CDs. I like
CDs. I love books. One
thing led to another.
The mass of auto
mobiles parked
outside should
have chased
me away, but
as 1 men
tioned, I was
being stupid.
I was stuck
on the idea
that I was just
going to
browse
around. There
were a few
Christmas decora
tions, and a man
sang Irish songs near
the entrance to the walk
ing mall.
I was physically able to
browse the store at first.
1 walked to a section ot books and
poked around. I walked around to
different sections of the store and
poked around some more. The mu
sic section sucked. I decided I had
seen enough. I decided to buy a
book I had seen on the other side of
the store. The plan was to just walk
over to it, grab it, buy it and leave. I
would have just left iff hadn’t
Day-after-Thanksgiving shopping induces
itching, bitterness and a lack of personal space
wanted the book so much. Again, I was
being stupid.
En route to my book, I realized it was
becoming more and more difficult to
move through the store.
Holiday shoppers were streaming in.
There were lines forming inside the
store to get from one area to another.
Among the holiday shoppers were
couples and the little kids they had
brought with them — little kids who
tended to wander around aimlessly
completely free of parental supervision.
Back home in Los Angeles, these are the
kinds of kids that end up on the back of
a milk carton.
As I stood looking down on one little
girl, perhaps 5 years old, meandering in
zig-zags from one side of the main aisle
to the next and then bank again, she
abruptly turned and crashed into my
leg.
"Whoops,” 1 said as she staggered
over to one side of the aisle and sat
down. She left a space for me and the
many people behind me to walk
through.
This allowed me to steer
off to where my book
was, grab it and get
back in the line to
get to the line
which would take
me to the line at
the cash register,
no joke.
Just like rats, something happens to
us humans when we’re packed into
close quarters. We get irritable.
In a tributary line off to my left, there
was a woman standing next to her
teenage son.
“This sucks, Mom,” he whined. “The
line’s a thousand miles long. It’s almost
3 o’clock.”
“Let me just put this book on hold,
then we can leave,” the woman said.
“Come on, Mom!”
“I’m just going to put this book on
hold, then we can leave.”
“Oh, Come on!”
“No, damn it! I'm putting
this book on hold!”
Their anger pro
duced a visible
series of ef
fects in the people in front of
me. As soon as the yelling start
ed, many people began to shift
their weight from one foot onto
another. Then the scratching be
gan, myselt included. Heads, shoulders,
ankles, and in my case knees began to
itch. There were five of us who
scratched ourselves at pretty much the
same moment.
The line moved along. The man in
front of me twitched the left side of his
face. Little by little I moved along to the
point where I could say that I was defin
itively in the cash register line.
I was almost done.
But the line to the cash register was
the slowest. Or maybe it just seemed
that way with my goal in site. Every
body who stepped up to the cash regis
ters had an armload of purchases they
wanted to pay for on credit cards.
Still shifting their weight every
minute or so, still scratching little itch
es, the people in front of me stared off in
different directions.
The man behind me thought I was
worth staring at. Now, I’m an odd-look
ing guy, but not quite odd-looking
enough to warrant a staring session.
I turned my head around. When I
turned my head, he looked another
way. When I turned around. I saw him
turn back around. I turned my head in
response and caught him again. He ca
sually looked another way. I turned
back around. In the corner of my eye, I
saw him turn his head again. I decided
to look at the cookbooks to my left.
I scratched my head. I shifted my
weight. The line had gotten to me.
The man singing Irish songs was
singing about getting dnink and brawl
ing. It was completely out of character
for a bookstore during the holidays. It
was just the kind of holiday music I
wanted to hear.
The line moved on as people bought
their piles of stuff. Then I was the fourth
from the front of the line, the third, the
second, and then it was my turn. I
walked up to the cash register and
plopped my one book on the counter.
The register guy waited for me to put
the rest of my stuff on the counter.
“That’s it,” I said.
After he rang it up, he was unsure if I
needed a bag. I made him give me one.
I was still scratching tiny itches on
the way to my car. I wanted to go home,
but I really needed milk if my plan of
cereal for dinner was going to work out.
On the way home, I stopped at the su
permarket to buy milk. I ended up buy
ing myself a pecan pie and a cheap non
dairy whipped substance to put on top.
I think I did it because the market was
so empty, so easy to move through com
pared to Borders. 1 think I was high on
personal space.
w