Merry @#$%ing Christmas - long

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

Well the Christmas shopping season is upon us. The malls are breaking out the decorations. The department stores are switching the seasonal aisles over to Christmas goods. Even the local Lowes and Home Despot are removing the flowering plants and getting the shelves converted into real Christmas tree display.

Time to see the really obnoxious Christmas Shoppers.

Case in point was several years ago where I had the worst shopping experience of my life.

It starts out on a quiet Saturday when I'm out to do my early shopping. I do it early just so I don't have to deal with malls (mauls?) close to Christmas.

Anywho I'm in Saturday Matinee looking at a few movies. The Santa Clause was just out on Video and I was looking at it to see if it was something I wanted to go and see. It wasn't on my first choice of movies, but my mother said it was real good and quite amusing so I was considering putting my dislike for Tim Allen aside and giving it a chance.

Well here's where I met my first SC of the day. This woman comes out of nowhere and snatches the copy from my hand and screams "I saw it first!" Irregardless of the fact that I was standing there with it for a full 5 minutes. I snatch it back from her hands and point out the huge display unit with another 100 copies of the same movie on it behind me. I point this out to her and she snatches it back a second time and runs up to the cashier and checks out. I'm storming up to her to give her a piece of my mind when the store manager intercepts me and asks me to leave the store. I'm not banned and I'm more than welcome to come back later after I've cooled down, but to leave before things get ugly.

Fine, I leave.

I'm now quite annoyed and trying to piece together my Christmas Spirit and head off to another store on my list of presents.

As I'm crossing the bridge over the fountains in the mall I'm being passed by a mother with her child. The child was carrying the umbrella and it was almost too big for to handle. She saw something shiny (or a toy or something) and she turns to go and see what it is. The umbrella pulls a Three Stooges maneuver and hits me in the back of the knee, causing me to fall down. Did the lady check if I was ok? Did she apologize for her child? Did she make the child apologize? Well if she's mentioned here you can guess that she didn't and you'd be right. What she did do as I opened my eyes was gasp in horror, grab her child and RAN. Not just moved away quickly, freaking ran as if I was a mafia hitman with a large gun and a really bad attitude.

Now my Christmas spirit is on a downward spiral. I'm off to the music store to get the latest Mannheim Steamroller CD. The Christmas stuff was next to the Rap/Hiphop section and so I was over there looking at the new CD when some woman comes along, body checks me (I'm on the floor again), grabs something from the rap section 3 feet from where I was standing, glares at me and storms off to the cashier.

Once again I draw myself to my full height (6'2") and start heading to the cashier to give this waste of food and oxygen a piece of my mind when this time Mall Security confronts me and gives me the speech that I'm not banned, but it would be a good to leave before something bad happens. It seems that they've been following me since the Video Store for fear that I'd to thermal and start randomly killing people or something. I try to argue with them and ask why I'm getting Das Boot when the people who are giving ME the problems are allowed to stay. No answers are forthcoming and I'm escorted out the nearest door (on the OTHER side of the mall from my car and as you may surmise from the kid with the oversized brolly, it's raining it's ass off out there.

Wet and miserable I finally get back to my car with none of the things on my list checked off. Since then I try to do my shopping online. That way there are no entitlement whores, assholes, and other sucky-type customers to ruin my mood.

So anyone else have any stories of "The Christmas from Hell!"?

Mongo

[Anakah]

What the hell is wrong with these people?! The Jerks always get their way. Man, I would have smacked the crap out of that woman WITH the video tape for snatching something out of my hand! Okay, no... I would just yell but that is the rudest thing I've ever read!
I would sue them for some kind of discrimination due to the fact that they chose to pick on YOU for no reason. That's the most stupidest thing ever. I can't believe they thought you were the one causing the problems.
People make me sick. I'm sorry you had a bad time. I hope next time things go a bit better. Maybe consider shopping online ?

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

Maybe consider shopping online ?

Since then I try to do my shopping online. That way there are no entitlement whores, assholes, and other sucky-type customers to ruin my mood.

Yeah, that might just work

<Chuckle> Actually that Christmas from Hell was back in the '90's when the first Santa Clause first came out. My Christmas's since then have been much better and less stressful. I just thought that it would be a good start to a "Sucky Christmas Shopper" story thread.

OH MY GAWD! I just looked when that movie came out. That bugger hit the stores in 1994. That was over 12 years ago. Shows you how deeply some of these sucky customer stories get etched into one's brain with a soldering iron doesn't it?

<shudder>

Mongo

[Demonoid Phenomenon]

The Nightmare Before Christmas...

I don't do 'mauls' in the month of December.
The last time I did, I spent 10 minutes inside shopping and it took me almost 45 minutes to get out of the parking lot.

Ho, ho, ho.

[Lyse]

Malls in December!? Oh, Hells no! The last time I ended up there was a couple of years ago. I hadn't gotten diagnosed for panic attacks yet, had no medication and almost ended up passing out. As I recall, that was the last year that didn't involve 90% of the shopping to be done online.

Why, yes. I am anti-social.
----------------------
I wouldn't know a subtle plan if it dressed up in purple and danced on top of a harpsichord singing, "Subtle plans are here again!"

[CrazedClerk]

I probably would've tried another mall but then again, it might not have made much difference.

[DesignFox]

I work in the "maul" so at least spending the extra time there to do shopping is not a big deal. I have to deal with sucky parking, sucky traffic and sucky people no matter what...Although, this year I am trying to get things done a bit earlier so I won't feel so stressed when the actual holiday is here. I'd like to enjoy it for once! I also have a much better job than in previous years so I won't be working 45-80 hours a week.

I am so sad reading this post...I can't believe security picked on you, when clearly the other customers threw the first shot. I'm not sure how I would have reacted in your situation...

[Hicksey]

I have a big mouth, I am THE BIGGEST smart ass, and I have and the size to back it up so it likely would have been me getting the boot had someone done that to me.

Here's a story from a couple of years back about my mouth.

I am about 6' tall and around 300lbs. I was standing in line in a convenience store, and behind me stood 2 women: one my size and another about 5'2" 400lbs. I could hear them attempting to talk about me under their breath and here is how the conversation went.

SA: Me.
52400: short fat one.
60300: tall fat one.

60300: He's cute.
52400: Too big for me.
60300: What?
52400: He's too big for me, I said.

After hearing this I turned around and let her have it because (1) she gave me a good reason to (2) I was having a bad day and (3) I knew I would likely feel much better after doing it.

SA: Are you kidding me?
52400: Excuse me?
SA: You don't think I heard that?
52400: *attitude* So what if you did!?! Serves you right for eaves dropping!
SA: First of all, I was not eavesdropping. Next, if you think I am too fat, you need to take a look in the mirror now and then! Holy shit! I mean ... come on lady ... PUT DOWN THE FUCKING FORK!

By the time I got done that not only was I smiling, but she was crying and I was getting scowled at by 60300. I just said to her:

SA: If only people would think before they speak.
60300: This is a free country, we can say whatever we want.
SA: That's entirely true. But you're only free to say it. You are not free from the consequences of doing so. Maybe next time your friend will think before she speaks.
60300: You made her cry and you're not even going to apologize?
SA: That's the great thing about free speech ... if you are willing to deal with the consequences of saying it, you can say anything.

And I left.

I have been known to make many scenes.

My favorite is to walk into a store where everyone is blocking the entrance to the store while having their department store reunions talking loudly about "the idiots that can't think of a better place to stand and chat other than in front of the doors" to which my wife loudly responds "I know hun, nobody is ever happy unless they are in someone else's way."

[Kogarashi]

I'm not usually crazy enough to hit malls in the month of December, though I'm planning on attempting it around the 9th this year with a friend of mine. Luckily, we're both pushing 6' in height, and I'll be largely pregnant and driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee (not a dinky car).

I have attempted shopping on Black Friday before, with surprisingly good results.

1. My senior year of high school, a couple friends and I decided it'd be fun to drive to one of the area malls ("area" being the city 45 min's drive away) and do some mall-crawling and having a girls' day out. Of the three of us, only I had both a driver's license and access to a vehicle, so we piled into my parents' dying Ford Aerostar (crap minivan) and headed out. We arrived at the mall one hour after its regular opening time (though now that I think on it, it was probably about three or four hours after its Black Friday opening time) and actually found at least three empty parking spaces. We spent the day shopping/browsing with no memorable crowd trouble, and headed back out around 3pm-ish to head home.

This was where the bit of SC-ishness showed up. We got out to the van (I think we were followed by a hopeful parking-space-opportunist) and climbed in. I started up the van and then had to wait for the opportunist, who had lost interest in us and wanted a space a bit closer to the door and ended up blocking us in. When we finally managed to pull out of the space and start down the row, we found ourselves directly behind a small car. This small car proceeded to stop and wait for another car that was leaving, the small car's blinker indicating that it wanted that space. We were stuck behind the small car.

Now, I mentioned that the van was dying. The particular way this van was dying was by randomly stalling for the first 10-15 minutes of being on, necessitating putting it into park or neutral to restart it (Aerostar transmission trouble). When it stalled, power steering vanished. It had already stalled on me twice getting out of the parking space, and while we were stuck behind the small car, it stalled again.

Just then, a pickup truck came up the lane from the other direction. The car pulling out of the space pulled out in just such a way that the pickup actually managed to dart in and take the space before the small car could, despite the small car's turn signal (which I'm certain the pickup driver saw). Car pulling out leaves. Small car parks. Pickup and small car drivers get out of their cars.

And immediately engage in a fistfight in the parking lot.

I, meanwhile, am stuck here for a bit, but I manage to crank the van past the small car, get the van restarted, and pull out of there before I can see what happened with the fistfight. I'm just glad I didn't have that trouble when we first arrived at the mall, as I was only 17.

2. Our first year married, Hubby and I went to get ourselves a Christmas tree for our apartment. So we headed to the local Wal-Mart.

On Black Friday.

Luckily, we anticipated needing to spend a lot of time looking for parking, shopping around, waiting in line to check out, and weaseling our way out of the parking lot again, so we arrived at 8am.

It just so happens that 8am was when all the crazies who were up for the 6am specials were leaving Wal-Mart finally with their purchases, but no one else in the town was psychotic/desperate/naive enough to have arrived at Wal-Mart yet. So we found a parking space in short order, and when we entered the store more than half the cashiers were redlining. This means they had no customers, and were standing at the ends of the register lanes waiting for customers. Hubby and I did our shopping, including picking up a nicely priced pre-lit Christmas tree (that looks very nice in our living room when it's fully decorated). There were still two redlining cashiers when we got to the lanes, and it didn't take long to get out of the store either. I consider that a lucky day.

3. Last year, we spent Christmas-New Year's week with my parents, and a few days after Christmas we braved one of the "area" malls (same area as story #1) so my younger sister could pick up her last seasonal paycheck from a store she worked for and so we could do some sale browsing. Getting in wasn't much of a problem. We even found a parking space with little trouble. Getting back out was a matter of an hour+ inching along behind huge lines of cars all filing out of one narrow exit (because no one could be bothered to go to any of the other exits; my family had no choice as getting to the others involved waiting in the traffic we were in anyway). What was especially annoying was this one car we saw zipping around here, there, and everywhere along the backside of the lot we were in, trying to get out faster and failing miserably, while subsequently causing traffic jams that only delayed us further. ::grumble::

[powerboy]

I only go to the malls early in December. Maybe a few times later in the day, you kow, to watch the maddness

[XCashier]

Aw, Mongo, what a horrible experience. And not one of those rude morons showed an ounce of remorse for their stupidity/clumsiness/rudeness. I'm sure Karma has kicked them all in the arse since then, and they probably wondered why.

This, and all of the other reasons mentioned, is why I do my best to have my Christmas shopping completed before Black Friday. No way on God's green earth do I want to rassle an angry mob over a beat-to-hell broken gift package.

[Jester]

Amusingly, the day after Thanksgiving is not Black Friday to me, but one of my Holy Days.

Not because of any religion I am a member of or believe in. And not because I like shopping.

No, the day after Thanksgiving is holy to me because that is the day my beloved Arizona State University traditionally plays our hated rival, the University of Arizona, in the biggest football game in the Great State of Arizona. I have not missed this game since I first enrolled at ASU in 1988, whether I am in the stands or watching on tv somewhere.

So I thoroughly enjoy that particular Friday every year. And I hear that, for some strange reason, some people don’t? Silly rabbits.

[Barefootgirl]

I shop online and then go to the shops to have a quiet coffee and watch the carnage. Call me sadistic, but its fun to do.

[Legal Eagle]

i actually enjoy shopping in late december 23rd is usually great fun, but by that time i have bought pretty much everything and only go for the fun of watching everyone else struggle.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I try to do all my Christmas shopping after work. The supermarket has some brilliant presents on sale, including some great boozy ones so I buy mine in dribs and drabs all thru December. Plus, the staff discount always goes up to 15% about now.

Tho, my main problem with going to town to shop tends to be the sales... which are a downfall for me. The years I worked elsewhere and had to go to town to Christmas shop, I would invaribly start out with all good intentions and leave with no presents, but some nice boots or clothes for me, culled from the sales. As for pushy, bargy people; I used to just hit the shops wearing spiked wristbands so anyone who barged into me would get their shoulder spiked. I will also shove back if need be.