by Freida Marie Crump
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Greetin’s from the Ridge.
I thought it was Deja vu all over again. Everywhere I went the same four shoppers had beaten me to it. Impossible, I thought. I can be out-shopped but when it comes the Christmas season, nobody can beat me in my stealth missile raids from store to store. But still.. the same quartet of single-minded commandos showed up everywhere I landed.
It didn’t take a scientific mind to find that Christmas shoppers can easily be shuffled into four broad categories. And speakin’ of the broadest, Fannie comes to mind.
Tugboat Fannie doesn’t so much shop as she besets a store. She assails, she assaults – she lays siege. All Tugboat Fannie’s are exactly the same height, shaped and honed exactly to be able to lay their girth over the rear portion of the shoppin’ cart. This gives ‘em a certain aerodynamic flow, not to mention an intimidation factor that parts the panicky waves of less nervy shoppers.
No matter where I stopped to shop, Fannie had gotten there first.
They say that Attila the Hun’s greatest weapon was his ability to know the field of battle before he attacked. Tugboat has borrowed several key pages out of the Hun’s war manual. She’s simply got to have the store memorized. There’s no other way she could bear down upon a crowded shoppin’ aisle, head down, fluffed hairdo pointed forward like a homing device, and make it to the Children’s Section before the blue-tag special is announced.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not bein’ critical. Fannie is a pure and lethal work of determination, power, and applied physics. A combination of Super Bowl quarterback and chargin’ rhinoceros, she sees her goal and has it knocked off while the rest of us are still gettin’ padded up. I tip my hat to Fannie. May her kind continue to scare me to death.
Maude The Floater. I don’t know where Maude comes from. Another world, I think. She seems to not so much shop as to simple drift this way and that, usually wearing something that seems to float in swirls around her. Maude can finger a piece of fabric with those model’s hands that often appear in skin conditioner ads, and you’d think that the woman didn’t have a care in the world.
She shares Fannie’s radar for the best buys but to look at her you wouldn’t think she was shoppin’ at all. .. more like displayin’ imitation pearls on the Home Shopping Channel. Her fingers are manicured to the quick and her hair somehow found a route of gettin’ into the store that had eluded your tangled mess.
At first glance you assume that this is The Floater’s home and not a store at all. She smiles at the colognes as if they’re old friends and makes small talk with the bath oils. For reasons I can’t quite define, I hate Maude.
Fumin’ Frank. Frank is the only male in this fickle foursome. Frank obviously only shops once a year and he rates it akin to a lower rectal exam. He cannot spell "browse." His mission is slash and burn and may the forest be derned.
Frank never speaks while shoppin’ but his gestures never quit talkin’. He’ll grab a blouse off the rack without checkin’ either the size or the price ("If she don’t like it she can bring it back!"). He’ll toss a baseball glove into his cart with a leathery whack ("Don’t know what good it’ll do. The kid takes piano lessons for God’s sake!"). He’ll bang a Barbie into his crash cart (How am I supposed to know what an eighteen year old girl wants for Christmas! This shouldn’t be my job!").
I have no doubt that on Christmas mornin’, Frank will be a father whom Norman Rockwell would paint in warm tones. However, on this day he’d make the Grinch look plumb Baptist.
Felicia Fertility. It’s not fair to classify Felicia with the rest. All the others chose to come out on this fine day of madness but Felicia was somehow born to the task. She’s a mother with young ones in tow.
Felicia has been blessed by God with an automatic overdrive that somehow keeps her goin’ through bottles, bedtime, bargains and by-golly even Christmas. Other people sleep at night. Felicia points her body toward the mattress and dies, only to be resurrected each mornin’ of the Christmas season.
She’s sworn that her children will never sense her weariness, nor taste her dread of entering a retail store without a babysitter.
Fannie needs a foghorn, Maude needs an agent, Frank could use a break, but alas, sweet Felicia needs a medal.
You ever in Coonridge, stop by. We may not answer the door, but you’ll enjoy the trip.