And that, frankly, is the way it should be.
With moderate supervision, support and a large crayon with which to circle items in a catalogue, I can take care of my side of the family’s gifts, which, I am proud to say, were shipped earlier than usual this year.
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I’ve advanced to the point that, when asked by the customer service person on the other end of the line, I can find my customer identification number near the mailing label in less than five minutes. Since turning 60, I also have managed to muster up the sense needed to have my wallet and charge card on the same floor of the house with me when I dial the toll free number to place the order.
As to the foul-ups on two of the three orders I placed this year? They were, in the words of my personal accountability mentor, Millennium Falcon pilot Han Solo, “not my fault.”
One error was due to a language barrier with an order-taker whose Asian dialect was nearly as unfamiliar to me as her English.
My best guess is that the other mistake — a wrongly recorded date of my credit card’s expiration date — was due to an order taker’s high blood-alcohol level or her failure to take anti-anxiety medicine before her shift. She had seemed a bit manic.
So you know, I also did a good job ordering just what my wife wanted from the catalogues with the dog-eared pages she handed me. It’s an achievement I’m proud to say elicited applause during show-and-tell at my men’s support group’s holiday gathering.
To be fair, which I never am, my wife does consult me on other minor, though usually insoluble shopping problems.
When shopping for maternity clothing for our daughter, she asked me “Do you think she’ll really like this?” I fear I blew my deep cover as a maternity fashion consultant by saying: “Gotta coin, honey?”
She also asked me to let her know if I had an idea for a ditty that would even up the 11½-cent differential between the gifts we’d bought or our son and daughter.
Smoothly sidestepping the question, I said: “Would you prefer a text or an email?”
For the most part, I do my best to serve as her support staff in the holiday shopping season.
She spends 90 minutes on her tablet searching for an item and then hacking into Wiki Leaks to snag a coupon, all while deftly managing to avoid conversation with me. She then calls a store somewhere in the Midwest to have a sales associate set aside the item at the desk, and sends me forth in the car with written instructions.
It was while on such an errand last week that this year’s Christmas miracle occurred and I discovered my shopping mojo.
Showing up at the sales counter, I told the clerk my wife had called ahead to have two items set aside. When the clerk told me she only had one, I said nothing, the customer equivalent of, “That’s cool.”
This had happened to me before and would happen again. Although I knew I’d feel pitiful and weak returning home without the gift, I had my excuse, which, in shopping, is my version of a receipt. If the sales lady says they didn’t have it — say it with me, Han Solo — “It’s not my fault.”
Well, while the associate was checking possible hiding places in the store for what was supposed to have been set aside, I went in search of another item my wife had written on the note attached to my idiot mitten.
Walking the aisles, I discovered that certain kinds of kitchenware have brand names that all sound alike and that bear a striking resemblance to the names of drugs marketed on television.
Overcoming the fear that buying one of those items might result in either chronic flatulence or my sudden, excruciating death, I returned to the counter and was ready to check out, when the sales lady said she wanted to check one more hiding place for what was supposed to have been set aside.
I went along, learning on the way that the boot she was wearing on her leg was the result of a holiday decorating injury, and, of course, offering my sympathies. Fortunately, nothing had been broken.
Then it was back to the counter, where she ignored a ringing phone she said she should be answering but couldn’t because I was there and my order was more important.
I thanked her before checking my note from home and saying: “My wife said something about an online coupon.”
“This is where you’re supposed to give me a code,” she said, in the tone a woman on a first date might say, “This is where you open the door for me.”
Finding the code, I woodenly provided it and then asked about a store coupon.
There was no such thing, she said.
I wisely pleaded ignorance.
By this time, she knew to accept my plea on its face value, then disclosed that her husband won’t go to the store for her because he’s afraid of making a mistake.
When I called him a man after my own heart, the bargain heavens opened.
Although there was no in-store coupon, she could ring up the three purchases separately and give me $10 off each, which was a higher percentage and a better deal, if I’d like.
“What a nice thing to do,” I told her, which it was.
An older woman, who had been waiting behind me at the counter with her daughter, told me my wife was lucky, having just seen the only time that actually has been the case.
When I returned home, my wife was genuinely impressed.
Although I didn’t do the math, I apparently had saved four times as much as I spent, something I later figured out means I’m not as far in debt as I might have been.
What really floored me was the respect in my beloved’s voice when she said, “Ya done good, Dad.”
Then it struck me. I realized I had just made not just shopping history but Christmas shopping history by relying on the same fundamentals that have been at the root of all my successes in life: Being obviously pitiful and moderately nice in a well-supervised setting.
And those are the words of wisdom I’ll be sharing with my 4-year-old grandson this Christmas.
Have a merry one.
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