You're an Asshole, Mr. Grinch
OR
Well at Least It's Not Coke This Time

Ya know how sometimes you have pieces of paper that you want someone else to have, but they live in another state so you can't just drive over (well I suppose you could)and give them the papers. This causes you to freak out because you really need them to have these papers. It cannot be other bits of paper. Oh NO! You need them to have these particular pieces of reincarnated tree and you need them to have them NOW! Well, I discovered an amazing thing. It is called a "Post Office". You can give them paper, tell them who you want to have it, and they somehow (I can only assume fairy magic) manage to get it to the person within a few days. It is amazing.

So I am at the post office the other day and decide that while I am there, I should probably go ahead and buy a book of stamps, a book of twenty to be exact. So I stood in line. I looked at people waiting. Watched an old lady carrying a large gift bag full of wrapped gifts which is just overboard on the wrapping if you ask me. I think either the bag or the wrapping paper would have been more than sufficient. I started wondering what was in these boxes. Not only Ole Lady Overwrapperly's boxes, but everyone's boxes.

Should I have brought a box? Do I have one in my car I can run and grab? I don't need to send any boxes off. Maybe I'll just stand here and pretend to have a box.

So that's what I did. It had a tricycle in it. Under the wheel guard of the trike's front wheel, there was a spiderweb with a spider. It isn't poisonous. Well, I guess it is not. I am no spideeriomapediaphologist for gosh shakes. I'll say it is not though. Boy my niece is going to love this. Well, she will love it after she can walk. Or crawl. Or sit upright for that matter. Hell, if she would just sit up on her own, I'd push her on it. See that is her problem. She is so lazy. Ya know what, forget it. I am taking back this tricycle. She isn't going to ride it anyway. I mean what was I thinking dragging it down from the attic for her. She is such an ungrateful little girl to only be six months old. Wow is she really six months old?

Can I help you?

I had made it to the front of the line.

I just need a money order, a stamped envelope, and a book of twenty Hanukkah stamps because I am Jewish.

We are out of Hanukkah stamps, but we have Eid Greetings and Kwanzaa.

(Because if it is not Santa giving birth to Jesus, it is all the same. What is Eid anyway? Is it a Jewish thing?)

No, I'll come back and check again.

DO THAT!! We will be getting more Hanukkah stamps in before Christmas is over!

Thanks. Bye.

Couple of things. I know Hanukkah is over this year, but why say "We'll get more before Christmas is over!"? I don't celebrate Christmas nor do my pretend people so why make it such a big deal to get more in before the Christian year-end greed festival is over? Just made me feel funny inside. I decided to be Jewish at the post office. Wait not to be Jewish when I am in a post office, but at the post office, I decided that I am going to be Jewish now. Sooooo.....yea.

So my parents gave me money for Christmas (even though I am a Jew now) so that I wouldn't be disappointed with what they gave me. A PLATINUM GAME BOY ADVANCE SP WITH FINAL FANTASY I & II AND KINGDOM HEARTS!!!! You shouldn't have!! Really ya can never go wrong with money. It is the gift that keeps on giving. Until it is gone. If it continues giving at that point, that is called shoplifting and you should probably start running. So yea. Oh! Yea so you can't get something that they won't like when you give them money. It is impossible. Unless, of course, you are me.

I had the Platinum Game Boy Advance SP for EXACTLY one week (bought it last Sunday) and today I am trying to sell it. OH don't get me wrong, I did not put the thing down all week. I love it. We went canoeing together. Took a trip to the beach and went scuba diving in the Florida Keys. We took a ceramics class. It was great. That is when I got the news. My sister-in-law, Cotangent (NO clue WHATsoever why that is her name it just is), came over to the house, saw me playing it, and uttered those twenty-eight words, "Do you guys mind if I use your washer? I know I am driving you crazy. I am sorry. Oh, so you got it. Is that the DS?" Okay, so maybe the last four were the important ones. At any rate, "Is this the what? This is the SP."

"So you decided to wait and get the DS later. That's what Tangent (my brother, her husband) and I decided to do. They are like $150."

What the shit hell!? I had no clue that the Nintendo DS was already out. EGHAD! What have I done?! Now I will have to sell this and get the DS in February. NOOOOOOOOOooooooooooo...........!!! SP is still cool. I guess it'll be all right.

So I spent all night last night at work drooling over and searching desperately for a Nintendo DS. Amazon. Sold out. Bestbuy. Sold out. Toys R Us. Sold Out. EB Games. SOLD OUT! Every single major electronics and/or video game specific retailer's website that I went to was sold out of the Nintendo DS. A single tear rolled down my cheek.

So I got off work this morning and sat down to work on the Ellen project to put DS out of my mind. I knew that if the online stores were out, no way in hell would they have them at real stores. So I called Bestbuy. Sold out. Called EB Games. Haven't had them in weeks. Does anyone in town that you know of. Nope sorry.

Then I called Toys R Us on County Line Road in Ridgeland/Jackson. Holding...holding...holding...Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer blah da da dee da da da...holding...holding...still hate that song...holding...holding..."Toys R Us. How can I help you?"

I already know the answer to this, but you don't have anymore of the Nintendo DS do you?

Yessir, we do.

You WHAT?!

We do.

*CUE THE CHOIR*

HAAAAA-LAY-LUJAH!
HAAAAA-LAY-LUJAH!
HALLELUJAH!
HALLELUJAH!
HA-LaaaAAAAAAY-LuJAH!

To say my freak was freaked would be a gross understatement. This was wonderful! I could go get my paycheck cashed on Thursday, go to Toys R Us, and buy my beloved Nintendo DS.

So will you guys still have them on Thursday?

(Pause....
....
....
wait for it...
....
WAIT for it.....
.....
.......
NOW!)
BWAAAAAAAha hahaha ha hahaha ha HA HA HA hahaha HAHA ha ha...........

Okay thank you.

What could I do? I was broke. I'd have no money until Thursday and they would be sold out by Thursday. I had a Run Lola Run moment. Faces and names flashed through my head. Tangent. Nat. Father O'Flannigan. Brazil. Momma. Cleptopatra. Wobucks. Cotangent. Nat. Momma. Wobucks. Father O'Flannigan. Momma. Wobucks. Father O'Flannigan. Momma. Father O'Flannigan. Momma. Momma. MOMMA!

"Five North. This is Jen Eric RN."

Could I speak to Momma Lastname, please?

"Sorry, Momma's on lunch."

Thanks I'll try her cell.

(No Answer. Try work again)

"Five North. This is Somutha RN."

I know Momma is at lunch but have her call her son, please. It is urgent.

So I wait. And I wait. And I go pee. And wait some more. Did she leave the hospital to take her lunch? What is taking so long? Did she have to go out and raise the animal, butcher it, and cook it all herself for gosh shakes?! My GOD woman! Two minutes pass before the phone rings.

Hey, baby, what'd you need?

(I puked out) I know that you probably can't do it, but I have a HUGE favor to ask. I desperately need to borrow like $150 until Thursday. I need it today. There is this game system, Nintendo DS, and I MUST have one. Toys R Us is the only place in Jackson that has them. Every online store is sold out. If I don't get one of them I'll have to wait until January or March or something and I don't want to wait that long. I NEED IT!

Um, okay. You coming to the house for Christmas?

I'm coming to the house on Friday to stay the night, so yea. I'll be at the hospital in a minute. LOVE YOU. THANK YOU. Bye.

So I drove eighty in a sixty to the hospital, got the money after explaining again why it was so urgent, and flew to County Line Road, a name synonymous, this time of year, with The Neverending Story's Swamps of Sadness. You get bogged down, depressed, and die. But I was on a quest.

So I parked at Toys R Us and was headed across the parking lot when I saw this cute little high school seniorish boy walking with his girlfriend toward Toys R Us. He is trying to get the last one! There is only one left and he is here trying to get it before I can! I'm not havin' it! So I old lady 9am mall speed walked past his ass while laughing to myself. He thought he'd get the better of me. In retrospect, he was probably not out to steal my not yet purchased DS. In fact, he may have not even really been there. I could have been hallucinating.

So I am waiting in line to get my Nintendo DS. This middle aged couple was buying stuff for, I assume, their grandchildren. Super Barbie Princess Plastic Kitchen/Palace/Beauty Shop and some Spiderman PJs. I think that their grandchild is a hermaphrodite. So the guy ahead of them is getting $1200 worth of stuff (which is insane to me) and wants every single toy price checked. I hate him. And he was one of those people that waits in line while his wife continues to shop soas to save time and then has them price check things so he can buy time until she can finish shopping and make it to the front of the line where he is waiting soas to avoid waiting in line twice and thereby causing the entire line to get pissed for having to wait behind the fuckers who are spoiling their child with $1200 worth of shit that was in his cart alone not to mention the damned additional $800 ($550 of that being an RC car...what the fuck!) Medusa dragged up to the front of the line!!!! Tis the season.

So those fucktards left and Hermie's grandparents went up to the register. Pawpaw Hermie picked up Super Barbie Princess Plastic Kitchen/Palace/Beauty Shop and flipped it over and over and over and over and over and over again looking for the barcode.

There it is *point*. There it is *point*. There it is *point*. There it is *point*. Right there *point*. I continued to point it out. He coutinued to search. It was a test. I know that it was. And I knew that I was about to fail.

Apparently, my facial expression had changed dramatically at some point in the mind-numbing box flip game, because a lady who had been helping this boy pick a game stopped helping him, told him to hang on a minute, walked directly over to me, and said, "What are you waiting for sir?"

I half growled, "I JUST want a Nintendo DS, preferrably platinum. THAT'S ALL!!"

She immediately went behind the counter, pulled my stuff, and walked to a register.
I pounced.

"Sir. Sir, no. Sir, she'll get you at that register. Okay sir. Sir?"

OKAY!

So then I paid, got it, and felt like I had just received the Holy Grail or something.

SOOOOOOooooooooooo...........What the HELL was the point of that LONG ass post?

I am so Jewish now.

Later Consuela!