I don't care for shopping

As the year winds down and that annual frenzied orgy of consumption known as "Christmas Shopping" lies just 'round the bend, I bring to mind the pleasant memory of last year's low-stress holiday in which every gift I procured for loved ones was acquired over the internet, an intelligent and modern choice which delivered me from the bedlam of local shopping centers and their nightmarish driving & parking clusterfucks and allowed me to spend the early winter days in my warm abode, wallowing in my flannels, sipping mead and guffawing while foolish procrastinators scurried about in the cold outside world. I am compelled to contemplate everything I hate about shopping at physical places of business in person.

Unwashed throngs
People just get in the way. Everywhere I go to buy stuff, there are other shoppers. The majority of them do not meet my standards of acceptable outward appearance or behavior. People go shopping in dirty, disheveled, mismatched, or inappropriate clothing, and blunder about with no consideration of other shoppers who know where they're going or may be in a hurry.

Unwashed throngs' shrill offspring
Even worse than trashy shoppers are the children they bring along and refuse to supervise adequately, allowing them to run about without leashes, muzzles, or other restraints. Just last week I walked into a Target store and nearly came into contact with a pair of little boys giggling loudly while staging a sword fight with foam pirate cutlasses, thus committing two offenses at once: annoying me, and abusing merchandise.

Incompetence
So many times have I been stuck in the checkout line behind an idiot who can't read, and argues with the clerk about his coupon that was refused for being expired, or used for the wrong item, or only valid at another store, and acts like it's the clerk's fault. All the while I've got ice cream melting or I need to hurry home in time for a TV program, and this fucking twit won't budge on saving 20 cents on ketchup.

Malfunctioning inventory systems
I guarantee that on one out of every two trips to a Lowes home improvement store, the whole checkout line will be held up because an item won't scan properly or has no price sticker, so everything grinds to a halt while someone hauls ass to the exact spot in the whole fucking store where that item is stocked to get the price. Then half of those times, the customer will argue that that's the wrong price.

Check writers
There are still people who haven't yet emerged from the stone age of commerce and insist on hand-writing paper checks. All of them are women, and 99% of them are old enough to have purchased groceries with beaver pelts. They've all been issued debit cards by their banks, linked to their checking accounts, and yet they're bewildered by this magnetized piece of plastic and cling to their archaic little books of perforated slips. And they never, ever put pen to paper until every item has been rung up and bagged, choosing instead to engage in mindless chitchat with the clerk and taking even more time out of the lives of everyone waiting in line. Then they're surprised to be asked for identification, and fumble around in their purses among the Gold Bond lotion and petrified Freedent to dig it out. I hope there are magazines nearby if you get trapped behind one of these dinosaurs, because you're going to be there a while while the clerk gets the assistant manager to enter a secret code known only to assistant managers so that Prunella can take home her Fancy Feast to Boo-Boo.

Coin hoarders
Just as maddening and time-robbing as check writers are people who pay for a cartload of stuff with rolls of coins, which the clerk has to break open and count out one by one to make sure he doesn't come up short a nickel. No one ever told these bumbling assholes that coins can be changed for paper bills at banks and coin-counting machines.

Solicitors
Even before you enter the store, you risk being confronted by a charity worker soliciting donations or selling overpriced chocolate to support their high school band, all with the store's permission. Why the hell would I buy their shit when I'm already going into a store to spend my money on shit I actually need? However, I do support having public health workers stand outside Wal-Mart and hand out condoms to the shoppers buying Wonder Bread and Easy Mac for their 7 kids with food stamps. Even worse are the bums that sometimes walk among cars hitting people up for spare change while they're getting in or out of their cars. These cretins should be shot on sight.

Parking lots
Even when it's not a major holiday, parking lots piss me off. No matter what time of day or what day of the week, every store I go to has a crowded parking lot, and yet only 1 out of 4 handicapped spaces is occupied at any time. People seem to forget the moment they exit their own cars that there are other moving vehicles in a parking lot to look out for, and meander through the middle of the thoroughfare at a snail's pace or walk mere inches behind a car with its bright white reverse lights aglow. I have yet to encounter a shopping center with a thoughtfully designed parking lot; every lot has weird dead-ends in places where an exit should be but isn't, shrubs that dangerously obstruct the view of oncoming cars, and barriers around freestanding buildings such as restaurants that force you to drive a 270-degree circuit until you arrive at that building's own parking lot. God help you if you return to your vehicle to find a woman with small children getting into a car parked right next to yours, because you'll be hanging around for 5 minutes while she corrals her hyperactive spawn into the minivan or SUV and then straps them all into their complicated toddler seats. Even worse is when it's poor people stooping over to strap children into the back seat of a Ford Fiesta.

Traffic
No matter where you shop, you probably have to drive to get there and back. That means leaving your comfortable home and risking your life on the roads while precious minutes of your life tick away. Multiply that times a few thousand on peak shopping days and you lose hours of your life driving, hunting for a parking space, and walking to, inside, and from the store.

I say, fuck all that. These are all reasons why I buy shit online. Everything I could possibly want (that exists, anyway) can be purchased over the internet, in my cozy PJs, from the comfort of my recliner, and most of the time at a considerable savings over what I'd pay in a physical store. Shipping is often free, and sales taxes are damn near nonexistent. I've bought books, clothes, movies, electronics, and car parts at half retail, and paid nary a dime in sales taxes, and never had to set foot in a store full of trashy, slow people. With online commerce, I can maximize the time I spend in my cozy home and save a huge chunk of change at the same time. I may go so far as to start having my groceries delivered as well.

...and another one bites the dust

Well, I'm in an odd mood. This morning it was announced that we'd FINALLY be up for raises this year, after 2 years on a salary freeze. I know, woo-hoo, right? Then my hopes were brought back to earth after learning that the average projected salary raise this year would be in the neighborhood of 2%. If that were the case for me, I'd get enough extra per month for the two of us to go to a moderately-priced restaurant.

To make things even more disappointing, and to get around to the title of this entry, a veteran of the staff got the axe today. What the fuck? This was right after a cheerful announcement about what a great year we'd had. Just drives home the point that nothing's good enough. There's no loyalty here, no compassion or second chances. All they're interested in here is how much money you can make for them. Slip just a bit and make them almost miss a payment on the Mercedes and you're out on your ass.

So what should be a happy day has become another spike in the stress-o-meter. Every time this kind of shit gets pulled around here, it just adds to the teeth-grinding anxiety. When a staff member has been here over a decade and gets the boot, what does that say about my own job security? It says, keep your head down and look busy, fool! And pray for that lotto jackpot!

This serves as a stabbing reminder of how unpredictable and unreliable a hired position can be, and only fuels the flames of my desire to grab that brass ring, hit the jackpot, and bail the fuck out. What is the divine, cosmic reason behind why I have as of yet not had my greatest desire in life fulfilled, and have instead been left to tread water in this gray cubicle? Meanwhile, those who do win the lottery are always common, tasteless people in fly-over states who end up getting scammed out of all their winnings by scheming relatives and televangelists. The world just ain't fair, I tells ya.