It’s no secret I’m not a fan of Christmas. If there were a recruiting office to join the “war on Christmas army” I’d enlist. It’s time we reclaim our national sanity.
Stores are crowded. Every aisle has several carts sitting right in the middle, looking abandoned. They’re filled with red and green ornaments, pine scented plastic wreaths, strings of blinking lights, under several layers of shrimp cocktail, crackers, cheese and sausage, bottles of sparkling wine, heavy dark stout beer. The shopper had to wander off and find a can of smoked oysters, just like his parents ate on Christmas Eve. It’s treacherous to snake through the minefield, nerves are frayed, and expectations are impossibly high, a lethal combination of fading memories and distorted reality.
And I had to brave the insanity for a bottle of bourbon and some beer.
Winding through the scattered carts, and erratic shoppers, trying to fly under the radar, a “moving target survivor subscriber.”[1] There was an old guy, probably about my age, sitting on one of those walkers that doubles as a chair, kind of stashed away, by a Christmas cookie display and a cardboard rack of caramel candies. There was something incongruous, and oddly beautiful in the way he had found a place to set and relax in one of the few places in the store where he wouldn’t be ripped to pieces by holiday shoppers. I smiled at him.
“Hey, man, how’s it going?” He asked, returning my smile. Two old people who understood the value of a few minutes of rest.
“I’m good, just need a few things. How about you?”
“Blending in.” His smiled.
“There you go, Merry Christmas.” I said.
“You too, man.”
In Ohio, liquor, like almost everything is tightly controlled. You have to go into the supermarket, past the produce, through the freezer section, and into the small room carved out in the middle of the beer aisle to buy alcohol. The government wants their cut, and being a typical group of humans with a little power, feels we, as ordinary non-elected slobs, and working class ne’er-do-wells can’t look out for ourselves without the assistance of a monolithic, hovering cadre of tax payer funded goons to tell us how much we’re going to pay for, and where we can buy, a bottle, or six pack, to help us get through this awful season.
Anyway, the attendant at this particular liquor store has a real fetish for horror movies, and he likes to talk to about them, in great detail. Never inappropriate, or gory, but he can go on for minutes, about Santa Claus as a serial killer on Tales From the Crypt, and the little girl who let him in. Around Halloween I thought I might be trapped there forever, or at least until closing time. People in line were getting restless and I think they were beginning to blame me, even though I was inching backwards toward the door, nodding my head and saying “mmm hmm,” over and over.
Last night, I finally managed to get out when a beautiful young lady, who smelled like fresh flowers and glowed with a charming happiness only youth and weekends can bring distracted him. I darted out to the beer coolers to find something good, something that would pair well with frozen pizza, which was our dinner plan.
At the end of the aisle is a section of single cans of beer, mostly domestic, and most of them are sixteen ounces. An older guy, probably around my age, was grabbing several, placing them in one of the little handheld baskets the store provides for people not buying enough to warrant a cart, but too much to carry in their hands. He was talking about the relative merits of each brand, comparing taste, and aroma, the person he was talking to turned and walked away, and he kept talking.
I found the beer I wanted and made my move.
An old man in one of those electric seated shopping carts was setting there. His hair was neat, but long and stuck out to the sides, in streaked, black and white lines, almost like wings. He wore an immaculate suit, and looked polished and clean.
He was smiling, and said, “I know you.”
I moved to the side so he could talk to the person he knew.
“I know you.” He said again. He smiled up at me. “I recognize you, because of all your hair, and you’re so big. He pointed at me.
“I know your hair.” He made a motion, like combing hair. “And you’re so big.”. I haven’t had a haircut since the second round of Covid, and I’m slightly taller than average.
He seemed so happy. His smile was contagious. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I didn’t know him. He was so happy to see me. Nobody is ever that happy to see me. It was a wonderful feeling, an unusual feeling, for sure, but I enjoyed it.
“Maybe you know my friend, Johnny Redson, he played bongos down on campus.” He looked at me, and looked past me, as his hands pantomimed tapping bongos.
“Maybe, I used to hang out around campus as much as I could.”
“I know that hair.” He smiled, and looked away, I wondered what he was looking at.
There was a woman, probably his daughter, pushing a shopping cart, right in front of him, she looked at him, and she seemed worried, a little weary, as if she had seen this movie before.
“Hey, you live around here? You shop here?” I asked.
“Yeah, this is my store.” He smiled, and made a proprietary, sweeping hand motion.
“OK,” I said, touching his arm. “We’ll meet here again and figure out where we know each other from.”
“Ok, Merry Christmas, to you and your family. I know that guy.”
Somehow, that trip to the store and my small encounters gave me a little hope for the holidays. I’m not sure Christmas is worth the expense and aggravation, but maybe humanity is.
—
This Post is republished on Medium.
—
[1] From Dispatches, by Michael Herr
—
Photo credit: iStock
