From nospamum@radix.net Tue Dec 08 19:26:57 1998

Newsgroups: alt.foot.fat-free,alt.slack

Subject: Gore Me? Gore May?

From: nospamum@radix.net (Mumthra)

Date: Wed, 09 Dec 1998 03:26:57 GMT

It's been an impulse kind of day. At around ten, I packed the littler

girls up and launched for the Faraway Gourmet. I had this inkling that

I could get something nice for a few people that I would like to get

something nice for. That includes myself, because I'm supposed to

remind myself that I'm just swell by spending money on things as a

reward to boost my sense of self worth high enough so as to mute the

later blow of the humiliation that I have overspent and overspent

badly.

I got some COOL SOAP, though! Sure, it cost EIGHT DOLLARS, but it's

largish for a bar of soap. It's black and marbled and it smells like

cloves and other things. I suspect that if I ever use it, I will be

eaten by birds. Other than that, my purchases were really far less

impulsive.

The baby and Spunky were amazingly calm. This may have something to do

with the protracted quarantine at home. They behaved like little lost

child people who had wandered into town from the wilderness with few

of their language skills intact--well, just like that, only on

SEDATIVES. Honestly, I didn't even give them an antihistamine. Still,

they goggled at all the rich people who were buying designer rye

breads and cookies and cheeses, and they pointed impolitely at

anything that looked like chocolate and said, "Ungh! Mwah!"

I agreed to let Spunky eat a Chocolate Santa Claus Head since she was

doing such a marvelous job of not doing anything awful. Baby Bo waved

at the candy clerk and somehow ordered up her own treat, a gummy worm.

he handed it to her with tongs, and I thought she just might push it

away. She confused it with food right away, however, even though it

was rubbery and translucent and showing wholly unnatural wobbliness.

Spunky, riding in the cart, was not overlooked by the nice man, and

she was presented with a few hard candies with jellied fillings and

other complicated abominations.

Spunky eagerly popped the first candy into her mouth while I was

distracted with the broken (unsweetened!) candy bars they were trying

to sell for something like fifty dollars a pound. I don't get it.

Spunky made a squishy noise. The squishy noise is never good. She had

spit the jelly guts of the noxious candy into her palm and made

several discrete PTOOIE noises.

Every now and then I remember why it is that I try to remember to

always bring at least one paper towel with me wherever I go with them.

I had nothing, of course, not even a helpful scrap of purse paper or a

bank receipt in which to put her "deposit."

Thinking quickly, I headed for produce. The elegant plastic bags were

just the thing, and although it's fairly difficult to wipe something

off with a plastic bag, I did a pretty good job. I did such a good job

that I bought myself a big bar of black soap as a reward for whatever

I did.

I can only think of it as Purchase Possession. Something OTHER came

over me after that. There was the soap, sure, but there was also the

escargot, and the artsy-stupid paper napkins, among others.

It always happens like that. The Faraway Gourmet always perverts my

good sense and leaves me with a tiny bag of goodies and a

ninety-dollar tab. By being expensive, it makes me feel cheap.

I think I'll stick to shopping at K-Mart. K-Mart makes me feel smug

for less.

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Ho. Ho. Ho. http://www.radix.net/~revjack/mnj/storytime/christmas.htm