I HATE this time of year...people are rude and treat each other like heels on a cow being chased by the prettiest Blue Tick Hound Dog there is alive! Mean people just suck! Can’t we all just get along this time of year? 

It’s that time of year again, a time I have begun to HATE, people get mean and nasty and forget to treat each other with respect as we spend money we don’t have on people we sometimes don’t even like.... So let me tell you about my shopping and wrapping day from hell! 

I got most of my shopping done over the last few months; I only needed name tags (to mark the one’s that needed to say; DON’T OPEN IN FRONT OF MOM!) So off we went to Wal-Mart! ACK, what a mistake THAT was!  The parking lot was FULL and people bitched and moaned about prices as well as argued with their spouses over what gifts they should or shouldn’t buy kids screaming for toys they couldn’t have and I won’t even talk about the customer service you get this time of year! By the time we left we had forgotten about half the crap on our list for dinner for the next few nights. So screw it we ran for our car and were half way home, when we realized we had forgotten the last part of Wilma’s present as well as the crackers for soup! 

 So we decided to drive out to the other one and Lord knows if that’s one thing ya don’t wanna do is forget your own Wilma during this time of year, after all a woman of such prestige as she is, needs some kind of gift for putting up with your crabby scrooge attitude and ugly ass temperament during the last year,

(By The way do you think a necklace from a bubble gum machine out front of Wal-Mart would be acceptable? Hey give me a break here after all it has a pubiczarconium in it! Errr.... I mean a Cubic Zirconium. OK so its not Tiffany’s but hey this is me we are talking about, the Grinch is second nature here! Yeah, yeah, yeah, Wilma I can hear your little voice in my left ear.... But I still don’t like this time of year, but “perhaps” next year?!). So I sat in the car and let my room-mate fend for her self. I had all I could take with rude people who think they are adults but in all actuality act worse then a 1 year old child with no sleep.  

Now speaking of a 1 year old, picture me sitting on the floor all ready to wrap presents! I am a wreck now, my hands are shaky and sweat has begun to form just above the brim of my backwards baseball cap and I am ready to snap the next person’s neck, who dares to look cross-eyed at me and all from just a quick trip to Wal-Mart!  

Then it begins.... My 1 year old starts in with her tennis ball and did I mention it has a SQUEAKER in it? Then comes my 2 ½ month old with her teddy bear, did I mention this one has a SQUEAKER in it? Then comes the 11 week old who bites at anything that moves, did I mention he LOVES bare feet! Then you add a 6 year old who thinks I am his only source of protection from the gang bangers of Lake Kooter Kleavage! They had slept all afternoon while we were gone, so they hit my front door running like their tails were on fire! I gathered up the crap I need to wrap the shit I bought up ( you know people wont like half the things they get this year!) and plopped down on the floor in front of my bigass TV and started in on the first present. 

I get half way done with it and the phone rings, to my surprise it's Wilma! Well I set down my tape and the roll of wrapping paper and sat and talked for a bit, listening to how she’s off to a swank party. I was glad I wasn’t there.  Ya can take a country mouse to the city but you can't dress them up! Nope I’ll pass and stay home with our zoo of gang bangers of Lake Kooter Kleavage!

I said good bye to the lovely darling she is and turned to find my first roll of snowman wrapping paper shredded and in a million piece’s on my floor and my Boogaloo is looking at me mighty sheepishly!  

The tape is missing and so is the little shit of 11 weeks old.  He wouldn’t make it to 12 if he didn’t cough up the tape. I spoke to soon, for under the table I can hear, YACK, YACK, YACK, I was the fool who of course had to look and see what he had! It was my tape now covered in remanufactured Science Diet for brat puppies no bigger then my size 11.5 shoe! In my mind I was thinking that swank party was sounding better with each breath I took. Hell I’d even comb my hair! 

I cleaned up the yack and got a new roll of tape, poured a FULL glass of wine and a chaser of Tequila! Anyone seen my Prozac? I lit a smoke and sat back down after retrieving a new roll of paper from the trunk of my car. I would dress in a white silk shirt and slacks and join Wilma, if it got me away from my wild children! Hell I’d even brush my teeth and spray some Old Spice on for good measure! 

I hear lots of cussing from my room-mate's room.  I didn’t ask nor would I peak my head in since she had been shopping today as well. I hear a loud crash and shuttered at the thought of what it could be that now lays in a million pieces on the floor! I poured her a stiff, VERY stiff drink, set it in front of her door and knocked while running back to the living room! I aint no fool.   My rifles are in the closet in there! Note to self: remove them next time she goes to town! 

Anyway I sit back down and finished the now mangled gift.  The box had been chewed on at the corners so I just used Duct tape to fix it as best as I could. I slapped a tag on it wrote the poor saps name on it and threw it in a larger box for later mailing up north to Wilma to deal with. I turned to grab the little stuffed dolly and it was now in stuffing Heaven with its neck as snapped off and hanging from one of the children’s mouth. I reached to snag it from her and she growled and moved just out of my reach, I crawled across the floor after her; she stayed just out of my reach. Oh sure you ask why didn’t I just get up and take it from her? YOU try and take a toy from a 2 ½ month old baby who out weighs you! She has feet the size of a dinner plate for the love of Gods!  

I wrote it off as a loss and grabbed the next one in line.  I cut the right size paper and began to wrap it but pretty soon I was a jungle gym for 4 wild children. Round and round the coffee table they went.  I gulped down my wine and lit another smoke, breathing deeply like Wilma said to do when stressed.  Damned if I didn’t try counting to ten, wondering if axe murdering 4 under aged children would be against the law in this state? Maybe one would be better off as a sacrifice on the BBQ Grill for the New Year? Now to decide which one, I let out a scream that would put Jamie Lee Curtis out of show business!  

They stopped in their tracks and ran under the kitchen table! I was shaking and ready to give my children away for FREE! I got up, got another bottle of wine and a mug of Tequila, lit another smoke, one more deep breath and I was off in my room looking for my monkey suit to get dressed up and head for the swanky party! I got to my room and stepped in a fresh present one of my darling children had left, smashing the warm soft substance between my toes. So I had to break down and shower earlier then my normal twice a month! What YOU laughing at? You try washing your kooter under a garden hose this time of year! 

I cussed and talked to any of the Gods above who would listen to give me the strength to not send them on a one way ticket to hell, no tennis balls that squeak, no teddy bears that squeak for them and no more bloody toes for me! I changed out of my bib-overalls into a monkey suit that had seen its better days.  I grabbed my car keys and out the door I went. So with my hair jacked to Jesus, patches on my both knee’s of my dressier slacks and holes in both my freshly polished steel toed boots, I got to my car.  The stress of the day was topped off by a dead battery in my car. I had left my lights on. I looked over at my riding John Deere/Chevy rebuilt big block engine lawn mower, ran back in the house and grabbed the key for it and down the road I went. Ready or not Wilma, country is coming to town! 

Now you’re asking yourself why I didn’t just lock them in a room or outside. Well I could have but I didn’t think of that until I got half way to town and realized it was now 11pm and the party would be over before I hit the freeway! I just hit the neighborhood bar and parked my mower in the lot next to some redneck's bruiser of a truck. I climbed off the blasted lawn mower and ripped the seat out of my slacks, singed the hair on my knuckles from the duo side stacked mufflers. By now I am cussing Wilma and her little children as I am not claiming them this year on my taxes! 

 I bellied up to the bar with a lot of stares from the 3 old farts in the bar.   I reached deep into my pockets ( I am sure the Grinch stole Christmas underwear didn’t help to curb the stares) and pulled out a squeaker from a toy, a ear off a teddy bear and several Band-Aids I kept around for bloody toes and last but not least I slapped down the remaining 50  bucks to my name and said keep them drinks coming till it runs out.  I’ll either be dead or if I should get lucky enough I’d end up in jail with 3 square meals a day and no more child care! I looked down at the bar top at the remnants of long forgotten toys and I did the only thing I knew was right.  I slugged down a shot of Diet RC and headed home to my way ward children, a house which by now I was sure would look like a bad case of romper-room gone horribly wrong and a pistol packing, psycho in need of a tranquilizer and a few treatments of electric shock therapy, room-mate! 

So you ask, what did I learn the next day when I woke up to 4 darling children on the bed. Well let me tell you, this scrooge is sending the kids to the pound next year and flying to a tropical island where there are no Christmas jerks! And I bet you thought I’d say I learned to wrap presents AFTER the children were asleep! Nope, you can bet next year I am skipping this one all together! No more monkey suits, no more children who have no manners and no more shopping with adults who act worse then our beloved children! I will leave the smancy, fancy, swank parties to Wilma, the city mouse, and go for the simple life of my island dreams, while I am the jungle gym for my older but not wiser children. Oh and Wilma? YOUR (and I do mean ALL of them) kids will be mailed direct shipment come tomorrow morning! C.O.D.!!!!!!

So to all and all a good night!

The Country Mouse, who tried to make it to the city on a John Deere Tractor! 

Happy Holidays to all of the readers as well as the writers of the Sandbox!

 

Feedback to The Country Mouse can be sent to Wizzy.  It will then be sent to The Country Mouse.