12.18.01 - 10:55 a.m.

i do believe i was cursed by a haitian witch doctor as an infant.

it would explain, for example, the unfortunate hair-eating-llama incident at the atlanta zoo as well as my entire sixth grade diary.

it would explain how i fell on my ass (literally) last week while chasing my cat, and why i thought that there would be steps to the side of the REGULAR steps. jeeeesus. and cracked my head and bruised my butt. and ouch.

it would also explain why, whenever my family has company over the holidays, my aunt chooses to tell one of two stories: how i knew santa claus had been to our house because i heard him peeing, or how i got so excited one christmas and i lifted my dress high over my head.

uhm... well, it would explain other things, less amusing, more unremitting sad or maybe just a little pathetic. and although i reject categorically the idea that i am so special as to have been thus cursed (and therefore singled out, my story one of unrelenting woe due only to the outside forces acting on my otherwise potentially enthralling life. what tragedy) ...i could well convince myself of this curse every year at christmas time. or, at least the last two years at christmas time.

no matter how well i plan my presents prior to christmas, i end up running around like a headless chicken looking for one LAST thing that i have (recently) decided i must give to someone for christmas or die trying. i don't usually walk around stores and hope to hit on something. i already know what i want. i don't wantder around looking for clothes. i don't buy other epople clothes. i buy them books that they'll love or, uh, junk. mostly random junk.

LAST year, i found an ad in the paper for a damned paraffin wax spa thing, on sale at lazarus. and i have another 15% off coupon. when i went to lazarus, i discovered that they were sold out. they put me on a waiting list "in case" they got the paraffin wax bath thingie in before christmas. unfortunately, by now i was desperate to have this exact present for my mother on christmas morning. i had a week left before christmas in which to attempt to find this.

i called ever store within a fifty mile radius that might have what i was looking for, and they were all sold out. it didn't matter to me that this contraption was really pretty silly and that my mother never went to the salon for paraffin treatments or any similar nonsense. i wanted it. i WANTED the wax spa bath. in the beginning, i thought it would be a cool gift and believed that i would get a good deal on it. by the end, i had imagined and re-imagined my mother's surprise and pleasure so many times that i could not face christmas without the paraffin bath, and i would pay almost any ridiculous price to have it.

lazarus did get more in, and before christmas too. i called them, and ran out there right after work. i paid more for my paraffin spa than i had planned, but then i got to walk triumphantly through lazarus and the mall, paraffin spa bath in hand. strangers watched me with admiration and no little envy, and more than one approached - a little hesitant, a little shy, a little bedazzled by my luck - and asked where i had found the treasure dangling from a plastic handle tucked into the jealous curve of my hand. magnanimous, i explained the source, and then watched these poor women race towards the escalator, plowing down the elegant displays of godiva chocolate bars and coach handbags, and anything else that lay in their path.

...and it was a hit. i was so pleased, so very pleased that christmas morning as my mother opened my gift. they called me at close to the very last minute. i remember it as a friday, december 22, 2000.

but, so. anyway... THIS year i planned ahead. the weekend after thanksgiving i ordered almost all my presents from bn.com. i had already purchased my mother's bracelet, and picked up a few knick-knack gifts at my grandmother's mall on the friday after thanksgiving.

i. was. set.

of course, i wanted a few more things. minor obsessing over what presents i would give to whom followed, and continued until i wrote everything down, and then continued again until i found a way to obtain it. (usually by forking over cash.) i encountered few obstacles, and all was proceeding smoothly. i just needed two more online orders, and i would. be. done.

well, two more online orders and some forcing bulbs (narcissus, hyacinth, amaryllis, something - anything - to bring spring indoors for winter). i was certain that i could find these almost anywhere. i'd always found such things almost anywhere, usually on christmas eve on sale in a big display right in front of the cash registers.

a thorough scouring of my usual general discount store failed to produce anything. so i decided to brave wal-mart, and settled on doing it that very night (last night. i think of these things late. i thought it would be EASY.) i grabbed a bus and headed out to wal-mart after putting together the new chair i picked up, and scoured. i had (in my head) images of me struggling with the six unwieldy boxes of spring cheer i would purchase, keeping the tender bulbs out of the snappy drizzle and the occasionally viscious wind blowing out of the east north east. i'd take them home and stash three in my apartment and bring three to work, etc. the fantasy was detailed and practical. i was ready.

there was some early promise. as i walked into wal-mart, i noticed a display of poinsettias and other potted christmas plants. i was certain i would find the kits i wanted there, but they only had live, already-started plants.

i searched the cavarnous (this is not exaggeration. wal-mart put the "christmas shoppe" in the rather large shed-thang usually dedicated toward lawn and garden care. it spilled out in both directions - deeper into the mix of half-finished shedding/patio sort of places where tractors and bone meal and grass seed are kept, and out into the store proper, where there are linoleum floors rather than pure ugly concrete, and where it smells like any other discount store stuffed of people rather than southern states.

...and nada. nothing. and nothing at our k-mart either. they were SOLD. FREAKING. OUT.

omg. i started obsessing again. i didn't sit down and plan out another gift. i started looking online, and as we all know any plant purchased online and out of season will be about 5x the price of any plant purchased in your local area because it'll come from some florist.

i was obsessing. panicking. dreaming about how i was going to find these kits and how the people to whom i planned to give them would adore them. baffling over how I managed (once more) to pick the single potential-gift on which there had been a local run and of which i could not now let go. Ohio. Kentucky. o, i would find paperwhites and hyacinth and amaryllis somewhere.

(ooo. and there�s now a happy ending. i called a store near my parents� house, and said store had the kits. i called my dad, and caught him LITERALLY as he was heading out the door to go to the self-same store. and called him back this afternoon. he�d found just what i was looking for, and purchased an almost-appropriate number for me. so now i only have one more gift to buy. one!!! more!!!! (well, maybe more than one. smirks�) )