Even veteran shoppers can reach a point where the ding of one more register or the slightest heft of one more bag is enough to send them lunging for an ice pack and Advil, yowling, “Make it stop! I don’t care if everything is 88 percent off!”
We are just about there. It’s the season.
So we’re taking the day off and think you should too — snickerdoodles not baked? gifts left to wrap? — to weigh instead those questions that bounce around our brains in moments of semi-consciousness (or, whenever Mr. Bag Lady makes us watch anything on TV Land).
Like, would we rather skydive or don full body armor in a medieval joust?
Give up cereal or e-mail for a year?
Be BFFs with Tim Gunn or Heidi Klum?
We’re not quite sure how this idea evolved, except that it came after a marathon shopping trip with too much walking and too little hydration. Unless eggnog counts as hydration. (It should not.)
Feel free to play along. We love notes from readers. And fresh flowers. And half of us really loves cereal.
* Would you rather spend $100 on a scarf for your mother-in-law for Christmas knowing that she’ll love it but never wear it or $25 on an exercise ball knowing she’ll use it but hate you for 30 minutes each day?
BL: Fraught with peril, as MIL’s are wont to fraught, but exercise ball. She is, in real life, a health nut. I’m also, in real life, a slight masochist.
SS: As I have no MIL, this is wonderfully academic for me. So, scarf. No, ball! No, no, no, scarf. Wait, what color is the exercise ball? Is it a winter scarf? When’s her birthday? Gah!
BL: Tough one! Cereal is the perfect food — a start to every day, a low-cal snack after work. E-mail is friends and savings and work. Cereal loses, by a nose.
SS: Cereal, buh-bye. As much as I love your crunchy sweetness, you’re no 40 percent off e-coupon from Borders.
* Would you rather shop for toys or tech on the last weekend before Christmas?
BL: Toys. I shouldn’t be allowed to shop for tech. (Too, um, technical.)
SS: I would rather be home watching Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas, drinking a cup of cocoa and eating sugar cookies shaped like Christmas trees. Why isn’t that an option?
* Would you rather ask Santa for a sports car or a Walmart completely cleared of other customers for your shopping pleasure?
BL: Sports car! In red, please. Long lines are the only times I get to ogle all the tabloid headlines. It’s a sad day when Bag Lady can’t recount the latest Kardashian scandal.
SS: Although a sports car would enable me to drive far away very fast, you can never outrun the line at Walmart. So. Dear Santa —
* Would you rather stand outside for four hours on Black Friday or stand in line for four hours on Christmas Eve?
BL: Isn’t this what the Internet is for? Those tabloids will keep me entertained for 25 minutes, tops.
SS: In line. It’s warm, there’s Christmas music to keep me entertained and I’m probably not ready to fall asleep. (Unless it’s too warm and the Christmas music is too soft, in which case all bets are off.)
* Would you rather get a gift you have to return or give a gift that has to be returned?
BL: Give. I hate turning over the sweater a relative probably paid $25 for to find out it’s worth $4.95 in store credit.
SS: Get. After standing in line for four hours, I’d like the people I’m buying for to actually like their gifts.
* In a jousting versus skydiving challenge in which Tim Gunn and Heidi Klum were each strapped to a horse and either dropped from a plane or set on a course to smash into each other, whom would you root for?
BL: My man Gunn. He’d be gossiping with the horse in no time.
SS: Heidi. She’s a model/actress. She’s dealt with worse.
Coming next week
Shopping resolutions for 2011, and how we fared sticking to the ones vowed to for 2010. Anything you’re resoluting? Let us know and we’ll try to include it.
Bag Lady and Shopping Siren’s true identities are protected by a pair of stylish, sweater-wearing Doberman pinschers (who will roll in one-quarter inch of snow with the vigor of an Olympian jumping off a high dive) and the Customer Service counter at the Sun Journal. You can reach them at baglady@sunjournal.com and shoppingsiren@sunjournal.com.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
