Next year everybody gets gift cards. That I buy online.

Why do I do this to myself every. single. year? Do what? Procrastinate on my Christmas shopping. I always start out early; picking up the first gift somewhere in October. And then I completely lose it and end up at the mall on Christmas Eve with all the husbands.

I usually order the kids clothes from Old Navy online and have my mailman bring those presents right to my house. But I wasn’t really loving any of the clothes on oldnavy.com this year so I decided to go to Kohl’s. That was around three weeks ago. But I waited until today to trek on over to Kohl’s.

Our local Kohl’s is clear on the other side of town from me. I make it sound like it’s a day’s drive to get there, but it’s really not that far. It’s not that big of a city. I takes me roughly 15 minutes to get there on a good day. Today? Today was not a good day.

Kohl’s is surrounded by a bunch of other stores, including the major mall in town, and a ton of restaurants. So it’s always busy over there. The traffic is always crazy. And there’s never a close parking space. Today all of that was a complete understatement. The Interstate was fine. But that’s where fine ends.

It took me 45 minutes to get from the Kohl’s exit to Kohl’s doors. 45 minutes! For a trip that should have taken 5. At one point we were at a stand still. I know you guys in the big cities are all “So? I’m in a standstill every morning on the way to work. In the summer.” But here in these parts we don’t have standstills. Our idea of a traffic jam is half a dozen cars at a really long traffic light.

After almost losing my damn mind I finally made it to the Kohl’s parking lot. Don’t even get me started on this parking lot. Even on a day that isn’t three days before Christmas the parking lot sucks. Who ever designed this ridiculous excuse for a parking lot needs to be fired immediately. Even when there is very little traffic there is always a pile up in this parking lot. It looks like this:

So you immediately drive in and have to turn either right or left. The people turning in don’t have a stop sign, but the people trying to get out do. So when everybody and their grandmother goes to the store the people trying to get out and have to sit and wait half their life just to get out of the damn parking lot. This causes a huge back up all the way to the stores. Which then blocks parking spaces. And pretty much pissed everybody off.

Which is exactly what happened today.

But even without the big mess of cars there was still no place to park. Like I said, everybody and their grandmother was out shopping today. Apparently I’m not the only procrastinator. I had to park clear up by the median and walk to the store. On a balmy summer day that would be no big deal. I love to walk. But on a day with -10 degree temps, a walk like that sucks the big one. I’m pretty sure I got frost nip on my cheeks just before I reached the doors.

And it didn’t get any better once I got inside. There were tons. And tons. Did I mention tons? Of people at Kohl’s today. As you may know, I can’t stand shopping with 8 million of my closest friends. I don’t like people to touch me. And with that many people in one small store, somebody always ends up touching me. I tried to quickly gather all the clothes I could find in each of the boys’ size before my head exploded. But I didn’t succeed. By the time I reached the checkout line I was shaking and holding back tears. If I could have gotten in the fetal position to suck my thumb I would have. And I don’t even suck my thumb. Not even when I was a baby.

But I made it out of the store, packages in hand. And I even remembered to ask her to give me a bunch of boxes. I consider that a huge success. [Baby steps peoples. It's all about the baby steps.]

Then I had to sit. First I sat in the the parking spot for 20 minutes waiting for a lull in the traffic so I could back out. Then I sat in line waiting to get past the median. Then I sat at the stop sign waiting for all the incoming traffic to get by. About 6 hours later I finally made it back on to the main road. [Ok, maybe it was really only 30 minutes, but it sure felt like 6 hours.] I was planning on going over to Pier 1 too, but I scrapped that idea after my 30 minute lunch break turned in to 2 hours. And that was just the traffic time.

If I ever go to Kohl’s again it will be too soon. I’d rather cut off my right arm then make that trip again. Bah Humbug.

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