Christmas shopping is not a favorite activity of mine and never has been, but subjecting a 9 year old child, especially a boy, to the horrors of shopping was out and out pure cruelty, and child abuse. My Mom was an absolute shop-a-holic and had trained my sister to be one also. If something was advertised as being “on sale” Mom would buy it. It just so happened that the local variety store had advertised a ‘blow-out sale.’ All items in the store were reduced by 25%, but what they didn’t tell everyone was that a week or so before, prices were jacked-up about 30%. Just the words sale, or reduced, were enough to send my Mom into a tizzy. My Mom and many other people went into a shopping frenzy, almost to the point of being psychotic. They were like rabid dogs. The uncontrolled shopping activity looked to me like something I had seen in a horror movie at the drive-in a few weeks before, “The Attack of the Zombies”. I became so frightened some of these shoppers might attack my Mom or my sister and bite them, then they would be a zombie shopper too, that I ran to the jewelry department where earlier I had seen a wooden cross about six inches tall and I grabbed one of them, and ran back to the frenzied crowd. I held that cross at arms length, about head high and forced my way through the myriad of people gathered there. I saw my sister and I called, “Becky! Hold on, I’m coming to get you.” She was already affected by the Zombie shopping crowd and tried to get away from me, but I grabbed her arm and pulled her from the mele’ taking place right there before my eyes. I dragged her from the surging crowd, turned and headed back in to find Mom. I was pushing and fighting hard when I saw my Mom. A man stepped in front of me and I couldn’t get by him. I tried harder to push by him but he put his hand on my head to shove me back. I bit down on that hand as hard as I could. He let out a scream that sounded like a 10 year old girl who had seen a spider. He shook me off then glared at me with fire in his eyes. Thinking quickly, I held up that cross and yelled, “get away from me satan.” Another man standing near said, “what is it son? Is this man molesting you?” I didn’t say anything. “Hey! are you molesting that kid?” This time he yelled. I heard another voice say, “he’s molesting that kid.” Then another, “Hey, Buddy, you molesting that kid?” All of a sudden, the whole crowd turned on that man. He tried to defend himself. “I was just trying to get a toaster.” My Mom grabbed me by the collar of my coat and pulled me from the crowd of now angry shoppers. When we were out of the crowd, my Mom said, “that man was trying to molest some little boy.” I didn’t say anything. I slowly reached out and laid the wooden cross on a nearby counter. I then saw two police officers, escorting the man away from the crowd in handcuffs. “I swear officer, I was just trying to get a toaster, when this kid came up, bit me on the hand, and started screaming at me. I’m innocent officer. I swear, I’m innocent.” As they went past my Mom, I heard her say, “you pervert!”
I was laughing until I got to the end. I certainly hope this isn't true and some poor guy got accused of something he didn't do.
My mother did most of her shopping in three catalogs: Sears, JCPenney, and Siegel. If she took us shopping, she made us stay in the car (Purgatory) until she returned, "Because you guys slow me down."
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It's almost Christmas. Lynn Basil is writing her last book about a secret entrance into the magical doll land of Sha Bebe that she loves so much. Bagannos have taken over the world! Lynn finally meets her dolls in real life. Can she write in a Secret
