Humbug

Small Person is off to her dad's for the weekend. The Other Half is off working tomorrow. For the first time in I-don't-know-how-long I will be alone on a Saturday. I plan to sleep, read and shop. The first two are easy. The last, however, will only seek to underline the error of picturing christmas as a magical, sparkly affair in which everyone is imbued with peace and goodwill, and shop assistants are both pleasant and helpful. I've made a list (and yes, I've checked it twice. I thank you..) and will be heading townwards tomorrow afternoon so that I can finally stop fretting over what I have and haven't managed to buy.

Before setting off, I will do my traditional Sneering at Last Year's Giftwrap and buy stacks more, with the intention of "using the rest up next year". Will I bollocks. I'll simply add to the mountain of hideous wrapping paper and tawdry bows that clutter up the wardrobe in the spare room. Love buying gifts, fucking hate wrapping them. I hate trying to figure out how big the paper should be. I hate my weird compulsion that gifts should be placed upside-down on the paper so that they're the right way up for unwrapping. As if anyone would care...yet I can't stop myself. I hate losing the end of the sellotape, losing the scissors, losing my pen (my special tag-writing pen, that is. I hate that I have one), losing the will to live. I hate that I care about where I stick the tag (top right-hand corner, thankyouverymuch), and that I have to cover where I've stuck it with a bow. I went through a phase of putting curly ribbon on as well, but age and experience have taught me (and this is the only thing they've taught me, sadly) that nobody gives a fuck and that I could have left everything in the carrier bags and had my gift-wrapping skills greeted with no less enthusiasm. But it has to be done, and so I will do it. Just remember to "ooh" over the wrapping even as you frantically try and find something nice to say about the gift.

Bah. Carry on.