'Bred Crumbs

07:15 PM
(Note: The First Law has been in place for at least a decade; Rules 2 through 4 have held true for at least the past four years.)

1. No matter when he starts, Tim will finish his Christmas shopping on Dec. 23 -- no earlier, no later.
2. Tim's shopping will take him at least once into the heart of the commercial Christmas beast, the Union Square area of San Francisco. (On the other hand, it probably will not take him to a mall.)
3. When Rule 2 takes effect, Tim will at first find the hustle and bustle charming, festive, and invigorating.
4. The effects of Rule 3 will last no more than 15 minutes.

And so it was this year. The trip downtown wasn't too bad, though; only three stores were entered, two on very fast hit-and-discover-what-you-need-isn't-really-here missions, followed by a multipurpose tour of Macy's, which would have gone better except that people don't seem to understand how shopping works:

1. You select one or more things you need to buy.
2. You take them to a service counter and buy them.

Instead, I was delayed in one department by a group of about eight country-mice-in-the-big-city, who were all shopping the same section together. A couple of couples were in line in front of me; as they got to the register, some of their cohorts, winding throughout the department in acquisitive patterns like the ghosts in Pac-Man, would come to the register and add something to the pile -- or worse yet, substitute -- while the clerk was already ringing up the order.

But that minor misery was offset by a new holiday treat, on the streetcar headed downtown -- a high-pressure peacock-feather salesman. He tried obsequiously to impress part of his giant, aisle-blocking bundle of bird leftovers onto a group of girls next to me at a buck each, but they didn't bite. He gave up and sat down a few seats away. Subsequent eavesdropping revealed that he was selling the feathers not because he needed the money, but because he had invested unsuccessfully a few years ago in a peacock farm and now has thousands of the exotic plumes gathering dust in his home. So he tries to sell them to the holiday throngs ever year. Hey, need that special gift for your boss or mother-in-law? How 'bout a big scary eye!

·  ·  ·

We now have our winner for Journalism Chickenshit of the Year: Time magazine, which has suddenly redefined its Person of the Year designation, previously given to the person who most influenced the events of the world in the given year, to apply this year to the person who most influenced the events of the world but won't piss off middle America if he's on the cover with "Person of the Year" written over his head. Thus, the time-honored Time title for 2001 is tagged not to the terrorist who set into motion a vile, disastrous attack that shook a great nation out of its complacency and changed the perceptions of hundreds of millions of people in less than an hour; instead, it goes to event-reactor Rudolph Giuliani, "for his surprisingly subtle touch, for his very real tears and for reluctantly taking center stage." Yes, Giuliani was impressive, but, editors, if you're suddenly changing Person of the Year to an honor instead of an analysis, just say so and quit rationalizing it. Clearly, you just didn't have the guts to stick to your own rules.

Send e-mail