Off the Editor’s Spike: Started shopping yet?

Have you started your Christmas shopping yet? Not me. I hesitate to say I hate Christmas shopping, but yarns of shopping Christmases past come to mind.

A man on a budget wasn’t meant to go shopping. Once a time ago I was pushing a shopping cart loaded with stuff that probably nobody wanted … a cookware collection minus a few choice pieces, a table clock that was supposed to run on batteries (not included, of course), and an assortment of want-nots from the clearance shelves. The pickin’s are always slim when you procrastinate.

My momma taught me to give the kind of gift you want to receive. So, looking down into that  shopping cart and beginning to feel kinda cheap, I asked myself, “Self, what do you want?”

The answer came easily. All I really want for Christmas is a king size Snickers candy bar (…well, to be truthful, I want a whole box of Snickers that I don’t have to share with anyone else).

I can’t say when my addiction to Snickers first developed, probably back in the day when a full-sized bar sold for 25 cents. Over the years the wrappers shrunk. Today the “fun size” consists of nothin’ meaningful — which is what I tell myself as I battle the temptations anyway. But I cannot deny my passion.

Snickers should be history for me. I’ve got a doctor who pretends to be my friend but has me taking a couple or three pills and tasking me with daily finger sticks. I’ve got a couple of grandsons who are allergic to peanuts, and I’ve got a mirror that reminds me what too much chocolate or any good thing to eat does to me. So, I don’t keep a stash of Snickers anywhere within reach anymore.

Most of the time this is no problem. Stores usually display candy bars on racks about shoulder high as you wait at the checkout counter which, you know, does them no good when your spouse is on patrol and alert to your impulsive whims. But during Christmas shopping, you can find candy in the most unusual places.

Until that particular day I found myself among toiletries when I noticed it — a 6-foot string of Snickers in one long packet sale-priced and hanging up next to the shampoo. It was a little bit of heaven right there in Aisle 14. All I had to do was figure out a way past my wife at the checkout counter.

I stood in total concentration when a bigger problem loomed just ahead. She stood 6-foot-1 and had to weigh over 200 pounds and the look in her eyes was as hard as any pulling guard I ever faced on the gridiron as she moved to block me out from getting those Snickers.

One glancing blow of her battleship hip dashed my chance at landing the prize. Without so much as a “Bah, humbug!” she grabbed the candy bars and turned to get away. Since she looked like her name oughta been Matilda, I assumed it was. The S.S. Matilda came chuggin’ out of that aisle and rounded the disposable paper products to head straight toward the checkout counter.

That’s about the time I witnessed what could only be called shopping aisle rage … no, it wasn’t me but some other old coot who apparently shares the same addiction.

It happened fast. All I know is what I saw. He rammed into Matilda, then slung and flung things out of her cart until he got his hands on the hallowed candy. Then he held the string up high overhead as if in some sort of ritual trance. It truly was a spiritual moment because as he lowered the candy bars into his own shopping basket, I heard him softly hum “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.”

He nestled the candy between the bread and toilet paper in his basket and took about a dozen steps toward the front of the store when retaliation arrived.

Matilda’s hips came carvin’ out a four-foot swath down the aisle. I’m still not sure whether she bumped into his shopping basket, the shelf, or into the old man bendin’ over to pay homage to his chocolate grail. I do know his head went flyin’ into a display rack, and the precious candy bars wound up smashed under Matilda’s size 13 boots.

My version of what occurred didn’t line up very well with either story that Matilda or the old man later told the store manager. The only statement of agreement in all three versions was: “I don’t know either one of these people.” In exasperation, the store manager declared the whole matter would be put to rest if someone paid for — and nobody went home with — the Snickers.

My eyes and Matilda’s happened to focus on the old man simultaneously. That set the ol’ boy off. He rose up like a Woolly Mammoth, half petrified but awakened in the wrong century. He struck out at the nearest pliable object, which had the unfortunate chance to be Matilda’s ample and animated left rear bumper.

It was more reflex than premeditation but Matilda, assumin’ that she was bein’ attacked by an elderly Baptist in the midst of the snack foods at the checkout counter, retaliated with an equally spontaneous elbow to his lower jaw, ‘causin’ his dentures to erupt like a hot banana in a clenched fist, landin’ atop a display of Dentyne Mint Gum captioned, “Have You Had Your Blast Today?”

Before the store manager could react, Matilda had the old guy in a death-inducin’ headlock while his free hand flailed through the Twinkies, slammin’ Matilda’s hip with every snack food available to the average American consumer.

The distraught manager desperately looked at me. I sighed and repeated, “I don’t know either one of ‘em… (then alertly added) Where do you keep your toilet cleanser?”

The store manager pried the combatants apart with two mops and a death threat. Once clear, Matilda went chuggin’ along her merry way, invigorated by the battle and with only a smudge of chocolate on her left knee to betray her ferocity.

The store manager told the old man and me to just go home, that nobody had to pay for the smashed merchandise. Just go. I felt relieved. But the old man turned to me and muttered what I was thinking:  “I hate Christmas shoppin’. I really do.”

Then I noticed him smiling as he walked out the door. I watched as he drifted into the back seat of the car. While his wife drove away, he unwrapped one of those smashed Snickers he’d managed to conceal during his escape. I bet a Snickers never tasted so good.

Oh, by the way, have you started your Christmas shopping yet?