By BOB WIRE
Ten shopping days ‘til Christmas—I suppose it’s time to get moving on a few things.
So I am forming an exploratory committee to begin thinking about the possibility of making a plan to start considering an effort to research ordering some Christmas cards.
Hey, if you’re reading this right now, let me go ahead and wish you and your family a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. There. You’ve been carded. You each just saved me a buck and a half.
Now that the cards are out of the way, I have to raid my pile of gambling winnings and get out there this week to fill the list of demands, uh, I mean, letters to Santa that have been given to me by my children. This will probably entail at least one trip to the Death Star of shopping, that Valhalla of retail and capitalism, the Mall.
News flash: Bob Wire does not like the Mall. For one thing, there’s no liquor store. There is a bar, but it’s a plastic casino attached to a restaurant, and the ambience of that place is like drinking in a closet. Not that I haven’t done that, mind you, but that doesn’t make it okay.
The Mall is a very attractive destination for people who are either 14 or 82.
One thing I’m really good at is picking out hats.
Packs of 14-year-old girls move through the Mall at all hours of the day (I’m not sure why they’re not in school during school hours), giggling and tossing their garishly dyed hair away from their Tammy Faye Baker-inspired makeup jobs. Their jeans are worn so low that you can see whether or not they’ve hit puberty.
And all this is happening while they’ve got a cell phone pressed to their heads, talking to the person standing next to them.
There are also packs of adolescent boys roaming the Mall, of course, looking awkward and furtive. They mostly have their heads down, furiously texting the person walking next to them, or perhaps another friend roaming another sector of the Mall: “dude wr r u? u shd ck out th coin slot on Amber she is so hot. l8r.”
The other denizens of the Mall are the geriatric Mall Walkers.
You’ve seen them. They’ll do 50-60 laps around the Mall in a single day, chatting about how much better the Great Depression would have been if they’d all had one of those Jitterbug cell phones so they could call up Herbert Hoover and tell him he’s a fat bastard.
“Oh my god! It’s Warhammer Death Squad Galaxy Master World 3.0! WITH THE BONUS DISEMBOWLING TOOL!”
Maybe I should have bought him a shirt.
The main reason many parents are forced to go to the Mall is the video game store.
My boy, like every other boy on Earth, is angling for some video game called Quest Legend Warrior Explosion or some shit. We recently celebrated Rusty’s 16th birthday, and in an effort to engender some kind of social life in meat space, I bought him a remote control helicopter and a pack of condoms. Barb intercepted these gifts, though, so I guess they’ll have to wait until next year.
His wish list reads like a Tiger Direct catalog. Nothing but computer upgrades and peripherals that will allow him to play video games longer, faster, louder, and bigger.
I would suggest that enabling more video game play would be akin to buying an alcoholic a fifth of Bombay Sapphire, but I know I’ll lose that argument. So I’m putting a fifth of Bombay Sapphire at the top of my own list.
I read somewhere that this is what you buy kids for Christmas: something they want, something they need, something to eat, and something to read.
Won’t Rusty be surprised Christmas morning when he opens a box containing edible underwear and a can of alphabet soup.
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Check out all of Bob Wire’s posts in his blog archive.
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Think of it as Gonzo meets Hee Haw: Missoula honky tonker Bob Wire holds forth on a unique life filled with music, parenthood, drinking, sports, working, marriage, drinking, and just navigating the twisted wreckage of American culture. Plus occasional grooming tips. Like the best humor, it’s not for everyone. Sometimes silly, sometimes surreal, sometimes savage, Bob Wire demands that you possess a good sense of humor and an open mind.
Bob Wire has written more than 500 humor columns for a regional website over the last five years, and his writing has appeared in the Missoulian, the Missoula Independent, Montana Magazine, and his own Bob Wire Has a Point Blog. He is a prolific songwriter, and has recorded three CDs of original material with his Montana band, the Magnificent Bastards. His previous band, the Fencemenders, was a popular fixture at area clubs. They were voted Best Local Band twice by the Missoula Independent readers poll. Bob was voted the Trail 103.3/Missoulian Entertainer of the Year in 2007.
You can hear his music on his website, or download it at iTunes, Amazon, and other online music providers. Follow @Bob_Wire on Twitter.