If I Want to Be Frazzled, I'll Stay at Home

As is our usual custom on Sundays, we packed Baby Bear into the mini-van this morning and went to the drive-thru at Dunkin' Donuts, where he got a box of twenty-five "Munchkins" (donut holes), while Mr. Lucky and I shared a box of half a dozen donuts.

My mother would say we were spoiling our son, giving him donuts every weekend. Sometimes I find myself channeling her.

As I handed the box of Munchkins into the back seat, I said to Bear, "Do you know how many donuts I'd eaten by the time I was your age? Why, I could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number I'd eaten by the time I was ten."

Mr. Lucky added, "Do you know how many times your mother has made this speech? At least as many times as you've had Munchkins, kid."

He's right.

Baby Bear, of course, didn't say a word. For one thing, he was too busy scarfing down his weekly ration of Munchkins.

Upon returning home, Mr. Lucky turned on the TV to find one of the Turner channels playing a movie he liked. "I wouldn't mind having this on DVD," he said.

"Why? Seems to me you can see it anytime right here. This must be the third time this weekend they've shown it." It drives me crazy when they do that. Nonetheless, I know the hint for a Christmas gift when I hear it. "Of course, to buy you Christmas presents, I have to be able to go out on my own."

"Then go out now. This is the perfect time."

"On a Sunday, less than ten days before Christmas? Are you crazy? The whole world is at the Great Shopping Vortex. I probably couldn't get near it by now."

"Everyone's at church right now." Oh, like we were? "And after that, they'll be watching the football game."

"Not the wives," I said. "The wives will all be killing each other for parking spaces and Red-Nosed Santa Specials."

"This is the South. Southern wives are more likely to sit at home and watch football than Yankee wives."

This was news to me. Even though Florida is the southernmost state, I didn't know it was considered "The South" the way my husband's native Georgia is considered "The South." And I certainly didn't know this about "Southern wives."

I'm a Yankee who welcomes recipes from my Southern mother-in-law, and enjoys thumbing through my Southern mother-in-law's back copies of--you guessed it--Southern Living. But I don't recall ever seeing my Southern mother-in-law watch a football game. My own mother, on the other hand, was big on football--and she lived in the state of Washington--definitely NOT the South.

To hear Mr. Lucky talk, you'd think I'd have the Great Shopping Vortex all to myself. On Sunday, December 16th?

"Besides," I argued, "someone has to watch your son. The minute I'm gone, he'll empty all the closets and drawers and disassemble everything while you're happily changing channels. Then when I get home, you'll claim he must've done it all just as I pulled into the driveway."

"Well, he does," Mr. Lucky insisted. "The rest of the time he's asleep."

Alas, Baby Bear is so quick and stealthy, Mr. Lucky is probably right. Only I can't let him know that--just as he can't let me know that the extra sheet of air freshener he removed from the air conditioning vent was asphyxiating him, too. (Refer to my November 2nd blog entry here.)

Either way, I will do my Christmas shopping on a weekday--right after Baby Bear leaves on his school bus.

Sunday is a day of rest, a day of donuts. But for me, it is not a day for shopping.

Come to think of it, it's not really a day of rest for me, either, is it?