Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - Delay and anxiety are Christmas traditions, too

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Brooks Peterson

Brooks Peterson's column is published Mondays. Brooks also sits on the Caller-Times editorial board and can be contacted at petersonb@caller.com

Monday, December 27, 1999

Delay and anxiety are Christmas traditions, too

Now, there's no way you'd be in a position to know this, but . . . I have been known, in my time, to be a bit of a worrier.
   I think it began in my childhood, back in the pre-Cambrian era, when I picked up on one of those stories announcing some scientist's prediction that our friendly old sun is going to turn into an ice-cold charcoal briquet within eleventeen gazillion years.
   Now, when you're a serious lad, as I was in those days, that sort of thing really grabs your attention. I didn't panic, exactly . . . but as I was making my daily rounds, doing my kid stuff, with old Sol sending his healing beams down upon me, I'd feel a pang of existential angst: What the heck are we gonna do when the light goes out?
   Worked my way through that, thank goodness, but the mind-set remains. And matters are further complicated by another consideration: the fact that, among my family and colleagues, I am known as something of a procrastinator. So, OK, I've been known once in a while to bump up against a deadline. Is that a crime, for Pete's sake?
   However . . . do you begin to see where this is going? . . . what we have here is procrastinator toting a fairly heavy load of angst. Put those together, and what do you get?
   I'll tell you what you get: You get me, three days before Christmas.
   Not a pretty picture.
   There I was Wednesday evening (actually, here I am Wednesday evening . . . or, if you prefer, early Thursday morning, tapping this out as the city slumbers) . . . confronting the stark truth I'd been evading for weeks: Christmas impended, and gifts . . . remained . . .to be purchased.
   Frantically, I ratiocinated. Mistakes Had Been Made. There Was No Controlling Legal Authority. My mind churned - as it had been doing for weeks - through an elaborate range of alternate-reality scenarios. Catalogues! Net-shopping! Homemade handicrafts instead of the usual consumer-society gimcrackery! (Oh, yeah: The kids would be thrilled with hand-carved back scratchers instead of those crummy video games.)
   In the end, though, there was nothing for it: A trip to the mall beckoned. I confronted the prospect with the same kind of hollow-eyed horror the French aristocrats must have felt as they were hustled into the tumbrils on the way to visit old Mr. Guillotine.
   So off I went: Morituri te salutamus ("We who are about to die salute you" - the gladiators' jaunty salute to Caesar before they got down to taking care of business), and all that.
   What followed was . . . stunning.
   There I was, on the Eve of the Eve of Christmas Eve, girding myself for the kind of hitting that would make an NFL contest look like a pink tea party; bracing myself for undiluted, industrial-strength fear and loathing as I grappled with other equally abject wretches for the few shopworn items remaining on the shelves; resigning myself to seeking non-existent parking in jam-packed lots.
   Know what? It was a piece of cake. A breeze. I could not believe it. Parking was no problem. The stores were full of shoppers, but by no means packed to the rafters.
   And the shoppers themselves! They were . . . well . . . mellow. Parents weren't snarling at kids. Wives weren't snapping at husbands. Kids weren't whining and demanding to visit the restroom or the video arcade (or both). People were just . . . shopping. Some even seemed to be enjoying themselves.
   And me? I made my purchases with virtually no difficulty. Even found some really neat stuff, like the little stuffed Y2K Bug that broadcasts the sound of breaking glass when it hits the floor. This is great! Forget Pokemon; this should be the Hot Toy of the Season. And for $5.95? I love this country!
   Did I mention I got free gift wrap for just about everything?
   As much as I was enjoying the experience, I was perplexed. I asked the efficient and startlingly cheerful gift-wrap ladies what was responsible for the good karma. They laughed uproariously (fatigue-induced euphoria settling in?) and told me I should have been there a week earlier. That was when the piranhas were going after the livestock - and one another.
   So: For my utter lack of preparedness, for my shameless, wanton procrastination, for my weeks of anxiety . . . I was rewarded with a distinctly pleasant shopping experience.
   Understand, kids: I'm not saying procrastination and anxiety are for everyone. Don't try it at home. This time, however, for whatever reason - through whatever happy confluence of circumstances - it worked for me.
   Thanks, Mr. Kringle: I needed that.



Brooks Peterson

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