Window on the world not always a pretty picture

I believe the word is ‘gobsmacked’. It’s the only way to describe my reaction to what I saw last weekend.

It wasn’t enough that I had a preview late Friday afternoon. You know the way it goes; you’re on deadline, the joint’s humming and you’ve been chained to your desk for the past seven-and-a-half hours.

Your bottom’s numb, your brain’s almost there and you realize that if you sit in your chair a minute longer it’ll grow arms, reach out and have you.

It’s a grim delusion worthy of the excellent animation in Fantasia, but one that nobody really wishes to pursue when the workweek is so close to being over.

So I stretched my legs, exited my cubby and yawned like a post-hibernative bear. I peered out the window that sits behind Kirk Starratt’s cubicle and couldn’t believe my eyes.

I blinked a couple of times, certain that I had nodded off and somehow managed to miss a month or so. You see, the window overlooks the parking lot at McDonald’s and provides free visual access not only to Commercial Street but the parking lot at County Fair Mall.

When the editorial staff moved into its new digs upstairs (in our beautifully remodelled environment), I noticed the window and thought it would be excellent as we moved closer to Christmas.

There’s nothing more a person wants as the clock ticks down to December 25 than a window on the world that enables one to gauge traffic and whether a particular night is suitable for braving crowds at the mall.

Like most men, I’m a last-minute kind of guy. I get so wrapped up in the countdown and the early deadlines that usually accompany our Christmas editions that shopping is a secondary consideration.

Indeed, at this time of year, it’s the last thing on my mind. At least, it was until Friday. Saturday simply confirmed my earlier suspicions; consumers and retailers are in for a hell of a Christmas season.

You can take that one way or another. If you’re a retailer, prepare to rejoice. The number of cars and the crush of people that packed the mall Friday night and all day Saturday should give you ample reason for enthusiasm.

I have no explanation whatsoever, but it appears folks are primed to blow their bucks on all things Yuletide this year. And we haven’t even hit Halloween yet.

Indeed, Halloween is fast becoming an afterthought in the minds of shoppers everywhere, although I can say without qualification it still looms extremely large in the imaginations of our two little ones.

The push to purchase anything relative to an event beyond October 31 isn’t even on their radar and I commend them for that.

Sure, you’re going to say that kids don’t have a global view. They lack the ability to see beyond what’s immediate. First, how wrong is that. Secondly, God love them for it.

I don’t want to think about Christmas shopping right now. However, I can see I have no choice. There might’ve been a few empty spaces in that parking lot Friday evening, but it was mayhem Saturday afternoon. Cars jockeyed for position like it was the Daytona 500 and traffic up and down Commercial Street was horrendous.

Still coming in out of the fog, I asked my wife if it was a long weekend or something and she just offered me that indulgent smile that says, “My hubby. You still crack me up.�

We took a back road home since our charges hadn’t had a nap and were fast running out of steam, and also because traffic like that is absolutely ridiculous and marginally offensive at this time of year.

There’s no snow on the ground, for God’s sake! Halloween’s but a week away and we haven’t reached Remembrance Day yet.

But it seems those Christmas shopping ads I’ve heard lately have stirred the pot. A lot of folks have lost it, people, and the hordes out on the weekend confirmed my worst fear. Christmas shopping is in full swing and I feel like I’m on the outside looking in.