to get by

I’m in a mall, standing in line at a chain jewellery store, while Boney M’s Christmas Album plays through crackling speakers.  Feet shuffling along a filthy red carpet, inching ahead about one spot every five minutes, we work our way through a maze of burgundy velvet ropes like cattle through a corral.  There’s a constant cacophony of Christmas shopper’s chatter hanging in the air, and my mistletoe-adorned travel mug brims with equal parts eggnog and black rum.  Thank God.  No-one can say I’m not making an effort here.

Mostly, the Christmas season makes me feel somewhat antsy.  Perhaps it’s the break in routine, perhaps it’s the pressing consumerism, perhaps it’s the underlying confused religiosity, but mostly, I look forward to January 2nd coming around.  I can’t wait for normalcy to return, to settle back into real life.  Me, I try to convince myself I’m not the only person who feels this way.

The girl in front of me, she’s maybe in her mid-twenties.  You know this girl.  Over her tights, she has one of those big red, white, and green Christmas sweaters on, with what might be a reindeer pattern knitted into it.  That is, if the supposed reindeer didn’t look so much like moose.  Her one hand grips myriad shopping bags, and her other grips a Chestnut Praline Latte.  She has mukluks on her feet and smells like Peppermint.  This girl is Christmas.  I look down at my own attire: my battered blue jeans, pink Converse high tops, and band T-shirt.  I pick a piece of fuzz off my pilled cardigan.

Taking a big drink of rum and eggnog, considering that maybe I don’t meet dress code, the girl turns around and asks me how long I think the wait might be.  At the front of the line, I see an exhausted hostess of sorts handing each customer a piece of paper with a number and the name of a sales associate.  Then they wait for a space to open up.  “Like, what are people even doing in there that takes so long?”

“I don’t know,” I say, “are we sure we’re not in line at a nightclub or something?”

The girl rolls her eyes.

I roll mine too.  “I know, right?”

“Why can’t they just, like, let us in to shop like normal?”

I shrug.  I have no idea.  Fire codes, maybe.  Fear of theft.  To build excitement.  “Your sweater,” I say, “those moose?”

“They’re reindeer,” the girl spits, looking at me as if I’m some kind of monster.

I take a drink.

“Ah, no matter,” I say.  “Both are simply varieties of deer; ruminants, from the Cervidae family.  What’s the difference.”

The girl crinkles her nose, sniffing the air.  “Do you smell booze?”

I sniff the air too, and suddenly the pair of us are like a couple hounds at a Louisianan barbecue.  “I think I do.”  I lean in closer so only she can her me.  “I think it’s him,” I say, throwing a thumb over my shoulder at the guy behind me, a frail octogenarian in plaid pants leaning on his walker.

“Disgusting,” the Christmas girl sneers.  “Some people can’t even make it through a trip to the mall.”  She rolls her eyes.

I roll mine too.  “I know, right?”