BY ARTIE LEARY |

The holidays are upon us and once again the stores are packed with anxious shoppers looking for the perfect gift.  Yesterday I took our infant daughter to a local toy store to buy some gifts for the children in our family.  The store was extremely crowded.  The line to the cash register wrapped around the entire store but nobody seemed to mind.  Everyone was in good spirits as they picked out toys that they knew would bring a smile to a child’s face on Christmas morning.  Everyone was cheerful as they spent hundreds of dollars on toys that would be broken, lost or abandoned by this time next year.  Everyone that is except one woman…the Anti-Christmas Shrew.

      I first encountered the Shrew in the parking lot.  She and I both approached the same parking space at approximately the same time.  It was the only available spot and I was there first but I waved her on in the spirit of the holiday.  This was my first mistake.

      The next time I saw the Shrew was in the toddler section of the store.  I was reaching high for a game I thought might be suitable for my nephew when she came slithering into the aisle.  I was fully outstretched trying to make myself just an inch taller so I could reach the box when I heard her bone chilling voice.  She screeched out like a wailing sea lion that had just caught his genitalia in a bear trap.  “You’re taking up the whole aisle” she squealed and nudged my shopping cart with hers.  This in turn awakened my infant daughter who began to cry.  I glared at the Shrew and wanted to unload a barrage of profanity but held my tongue.  I figured not only was my daughter in earshot but it is the holiday season so I should just shrug it off.  I should do what Jesus would do.  Therefore I calmly apologized for being in the way (which I wasn’t – she had plenty of room) and moved my cart even further out of the way.

      The third and last encounter with the Shrew occurred as I turned toward the bicycle section of the store and inadvertently got swept into the check out line.  As I strategized how to remove myself from the line and make my way over to the bicycles I heard the voice of the Shrew again.  “Excuse me, Sir.  Are you cutting?” she exclaimed in a voice loud enough for people on the other side of the store to hear her.  I knew she wasn’t just asking me to get out of the line but also wanted to lay claim to her territory like a dog relieving himself on a tree.  Well I had had enough of the Shrew for one holiday and decided to strike back.

      I suggested the Shrew ask Santa for a time machine so she could travel back in time to before she was such a miserable specimen and change whatever it was that made her this way.  I asked if she was married and when she replied “No” I responded that it was no surprise that a man wouldn’t want to spend a single day with her and her lousy attitude let alone an entire lifetime.

      I knew I had her on the ropes as her bottom lip began to quiver and her eyes showed moisture.  This is it, I thought, time for the knockout punch.  All of the other shoppers in the immediate area recognized that the Shrew was wrong.  I was doing the entire community a service.  Time to lower the boom.

      That’s when I looked down into my cart and saw the fear in my infant’s eyes.  She has never seen me this mad before and it was taking its toll.  I quickly evaluated my options and decided to regain my composure.  I bent down, kissed my daughter on the forehead and tickled her neck.  I then stood tall and leaned toward the Shrew.  I responded simply with this…

      “Another time, another place I’d break you like the tired mule you are”, I said.  “But I don’t want my daughter to witness it and risk the chance that she may turn into a bitter, old Shrew like you.”

      Then I closed with comment aloud that everyone could hear.

      “Merry Christmas beautiful.  I hope Santa brings you a friend”, which was met with applause from all the shoppers…Christmas spirit restored.

N E X T_P A G E _| Hush Little Baby  Continued