ON the ninth day of Christmas I made a complete idiot out of myself down at the local Safeway. . . . and a melon head
in a dumbo treeI was confused. I thought it was the Tenth Day of Christmas, I swear. I was down there shopping at 7 in the morning on Monday, totally convinced that the next day was Christmas Eve. I was gathering everything my daughter and I would need to make Christmas apple pies for our neighbors and the bulk of the goodies we would need to throw a Christmas dinner for about 125 people. At least, I think that's how many relatives and friends my wife had invited to dinner.
I learned this year that it is possible to get a little too organized for Christmas. I was so far ahead of the curve that by Monday I had convinced myself that Christmas was on Wednesday. And so I was lurching through the empty aisles of Safeway on Monday morning marveling at how stress-free the holidays can be if you just plan a little.
I was a genius, I thought. Look, not a soul to be found in the supermarket at this time of day. No angels clogging up the produce department singing about Hark the Harold. No one in gay apparel. No one elbowing you out of way so they can get at the roast beasts.
It was just jolly old clever the way I planned to do my shopping while most people were still wasting valuable holiday minutes doing something as indulgent as sleeping.
My favorite checkout lady Betty seemed a little surprised to see me slowly pushing my heavily laden shopping cart toward her station. But she didn't say a word when I babbled about making the annual Christmas Eve pancake dinner on Dec. 23 instead of the 24th. Supermarket checkout people know how to deal with the deranged. Smile, nod and get them out of there as quickly as possible.
IT wasn't until I got home, continuing to babble about how clever my early morning shopping outing was, when my wife smacked me back into reality.
"Christmas isn't until Thursday, you melon head," she said.
I was shocked. Melons. I had forgotten the damn melons. Then I was shocked again. Thursday? Thursday is the Twelfth Day of Christmas?
Any disappointment about my apparently advancing mental feebleness was washed away with the realization that I was actually a day ahead! I felt like Scrooge, finding out that he had not missed Christmas, except in this case, I had managed to give myself AN EXTRA DAY of Christmas! I wanted to throw open the shutters and shout down to the clever little boy in the snow-covered lane to run down to Safeway and get me the biggest melons they had. But we have no shutters, so I guess the neighborhood was lucky there.
The excitement wore off a bit when I realized I had a dentist appointment that afternoon. It wore off even more after the dentist spent an hour and a half excavating a hole the size of the Grand Canyon in one of my teeth. The excitement would wear off even more when the pain killer wore off, but I was still in enough good cheer to wish everyone in the dental reception area a "Mewah Kwishmush un ga Haffee Goo Yeehah!" with a surprisingly little amount of drooling, considering half my face was numb.
Anyway, the point is, you can get a little too organized. But I'm back on track now. As you read this, it is Christmas Eve. It is. I looked at the calendar. It is the Eleventh Day of Christmas.
But more importantly, it is the First Day of New Year's.
That's right, I have eight wonderful days to prepare for New Year's Day. Now, let's see, on
the Fifth Day of New Year's, I'm going to buy a load of champagne ...