I get there and am greeted by the Salvation Army bellringers, none of whom were being pushy so I told myself that I would get to them on the way out. I go inside the Christmas Tree Shop and am immediately taken by an obvious lack of Christmas trees available for sale. Mind you, this is December 8th so it's not too late in the season for me to think I ought to be able to find one. Their selection of small table trees was pitiful at best. For a store calling itself The Christmas Tree Shop, you would think it would be a little more heavily weighted in Christmas-themed offerings. I know such a store could not survive the rest of the year on such a theme, but this is not the rest of the year...this is Christmas goddamnit!
Anyways, the tabletop trees they were offering were of a truly shitty quality and all were "pre-lit". I DON'T WANT LIGHTS IN MY TREE! Why is simplicity so fucking difficult to find these days? I have no outlet for such a tree and even if I did, I have no desire to light it up anyway. I just want a simple, somewhat realistic-looking artificial tree whose branches are strong enough to hold up a heavier-than-normal ornament. I cannot find such a thing. I'm not gonna buy the peripherals without the centerpiece.
I left the Christmas Tree Shop, put $20 in the Salvation Army pot, and went to the adjacent stores Ikea and Bed Bath & Beyond. No luck in either store. The first of two patterns that I had noticed in all my (attempts at) shopping were that all these stores offer a wide selection of peripherals: ornaments, wreaths, lights, wrapping paper, candles, holly, wintery themes, snowglobes, etc. but the tree selection was shit: poor quality, pre-lit (I saw one with fiber-optic branches), or with crap in it like artificial poinsettia flowers or glitter that I don't want either.
Since the Mall was across the way, I went there and learned again that pedestrians are truly the scum of the earth for urban planners. I don't get why sidewalks are on the bridges themselves (and usually on only one side too which strikes me as odd), but once you're off the bridge, they disappear. At best, there's a guardrail I can walk behind on muddy grass next to the road...otherwise, it's a shoulder. And while I get that phony courtesy from drivers on lightly-travelled suburban roads -- you know, when the driver waves you to cross when they're the ones with the right of way or they signaled their intent to turn so I stopped at the corner waiting for them to turn...but they let me go anyway. I fucking hate that...JUST GO!!! I'm not in a hurry, I'm walking...it kind of implies leisurely. Just go and don't give me your bullshit kindness -- That "courtesy", however, completely disappears when near the Mall. A pedestrian is the equivalent of a hamburger wrapper caught in the breeze floating across the street. Light's green on your side? They don't give a fuck. A gap wide enough for you to finally cross through opens up? Eh...I'll make my turn now and make you keep waiting. Crossing the street on the clear? They don't give a shit, they're turning right in front of you, missing you sometimes by inches. I had that happen in my old apartment...it threw my mind for such a loop that the only "rational" response I was capable of was desiring to throw a rock at that car like an angry monkey. The side-view mirror came within six inches of me and he crossed in front of me while turning off from the main road onto the side road I was still crossing. But I've digressed...
In the Mall, I checked out J.C. Penney's, got distracted by a Christmas-themed temporary store, and then went in Macy's where I had originally planned to go before happening on the Christmas Tree Shop idea. Nothing. And here I stumbled upon the other pattern: All of these stores had higher quality store decoration trees than the ones they were offering for sale to their customers. I don't get that at all. Macy's actually had what was probably one notch below what I was looking for (the needles could've looked better). It was definitely acceptable, I would've bought it. Problem? Store decoration...not for sale. What they were offering? A far inferior product... I don't get it. I really don't.
On the way home, I checked out the local CVS out of desperation...nothing. I went to National Wholesale Liquidators...no table top trees. I finally went to the Home Depot. The Home Depot had a surprisingly large selection of trees, both real and fake. Home Depot had a far superior selection of trees than did the Christmas Tree Shop which, quite honestly, I find inherently wrong... Home Depot came close. I was tired. I was ready to accept even a pre-lit tree but again, I could not find not only what I was looking for, but not even something approximating what I was looking for. Annoyed and disappointed, I went to the local pizza place, bought a pie, and went home to watch Tora! Tora! Tora! like I was supposed to on the seventh.
I'll just have to try online...but this is really something that needs to be checked out in person before buying. Sigh... I just don't get it. Simplicity is probably the hardest thing to find. I remember when my CD player's laser broke, trying to replace the unit was difficult. I wanted a player that had as few moving parts as possible. That meant it just held one CD at a time...none of this multi-CD stuff. I wanted a cassette player on it, a radio, and an auxiliary port since I had just recently purchased an XM radio. I also wanted all the functions to be on the unit itself and for it to have as few bells and whistles as possible. I don't need a graphics equalizer with actual graphics; I don't need a clock; just a simple stereo system. I ended up, in frustration, getting one that came with a remote. The unit itself, has every function except, for some reason, a button to access the auxiliary port. You need the remote to do that. So now I keep a remote around simply so I can listen to my XM. It's also impossible to program a CD without the remote either. I don't get it...why is that so hard? WHY DOES EVERYTHING COME WITH A FUCKING REMOTE CONTROL?!! But I digress.....
ADDENDUM: This is the result of all my stress. I spent the following Monday looking for tinsel to wrap the tree with. Again, I found nothing at mall but this time, my desperate bid at CVS actually paid off and CVS was thus duly awarded with additional purchases of wrapping paper and tree ornaments.
(originally posted to That Other Journal on December 9, 2009)
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