I hate shopping during the run-up to Christmas so very much. And it seems to start now on Halloween, but it doesn’t get truly horrific until The Friday.

I will go to great lengths to avoid stores, especially Target, between Thanksgiving and the new year. That means making a pre-thanksgiving toiletries strike on Target. This year’s mission actually needed some sort of codename, for it was a military operation that would have made my brother proud. Or, horrified and embarrassed and praying that he’s adopted and not genetically related to me in any way. One or the other. Possibly both.

I had Operational Command of the mission. Husband drove the Armored Personnel (products) Carrier.

I shouldn’t even admit to how fastidiously I planned the whole venture, and I almost dumped the draft of this post (which has been languishing since, oh, the week before Thanksgiving). But, it seemed wrong to post my rambling dissertation of the film Bloodrayne right after a post about World Aids Day, so I’m going to fess up to the lengths I’ll go to avoid the holiday crowds at Target instead.

It’s either this, or telling you about the squirrel invasion in our attic. There are squirrels, and possibly an elk up there. The noise is absurd. It’s like some sort of divine punishment for all of those posts about squirrels. It’s best not to dwell on the wildlife situation until we get it resolved, or my head might actually explode. (And yes, we put ammonia up there. I think the bastards are using it to make cocktails or something).

So back to the shopping excursion…

I checked the inventory of personal care products in our closet and made lists. And then I redrew them as what amounted to an image map, to correlate with the actual product locations in the store. It’s bizarre. It’s obsessive. It leads to alleged grown-ups such as Husband and myself having conversations that include phrases like, “Did you assess the mouthwash situation?” and “The strategic stockpile of cotton facial cleansing pads will hold through February.” Because “Do we need mouthwash?” just doesn’t sound prepared enough, I guess.

It’s probably more work than it should be, and I could just order stuff online or pay the exorbitant prices at the local drugstores, but that’s just silly. On the other hand, hopefully won’t have to venture into Target for routine shopping again until January. And if we run out of something, well, I have the keys to most of the neighbor’s houses, so I don’t foresee any dire emergencies.

And to me, all of the planning was totally worth it. I’m telling you, there are few things I can tolerate less than crazed holiday shoppers. Venture out amongst insane frenzied consumerist cattle all hopped up on seasonal lattes from Starbucks and looking to rumble over the new Elmo? On purpose? No. No, thank you.

Not to mention that there’s something about The Holiday Season that seems to make them all wear too much perfume. Add that to all of the Seasonal Stinkiness in the stores and it all adds up to crankiness and a headache. (Sidenote: who is the maniac who decided that is what Christmas smells like? Go to the Seasonal aisle where all of the candles and potpouri is displayed and take a big whiff. What is that supposed to be? Since when does Christmas smell like the back of a yellow cab?)

The perfume and bad smells headache just leads to more crankiness. It’s not pretty, let’s just leave it at that.

*Dear neighbors: I am soooo only kidding. Pretty much.