Saturday, December 25, 2004

Mall Santa

We were at the mall last week. So was everyone else living in the upstate. When we got inside (this was an achievment), we went straight for the mall Santa. This was one of our missions. There was a sign up near the entrance that Santa was out for a moment. It had one of those cardboard clocks that said "will be back at: " and it was set for about an hour away. There was nobody in line, so we walked down to the game store. I am not visiting the mall without stopping in the game store. After that detour, we headed straight back to Santa. We still had about fourty minutes. There was a line now, only about ten or twelve long. We got in line. I was instantly bored. I started playing with my cell phone, instant messaging almost everyone in my address book. A few called me back, and a few didn't recognize my phone number. I would answer my phone and get, "who is this?!"
Santa was running about five minutes late, and all the kids were getting jumpy. One of the kids in front of us was near the cardboard sign. He reached over and changed the time the little clock was displaying. Horror flashed through my head, as I imagined that any kid (or adult) could have walked up and changed that time before we got to the mall. Maybe Santa wasn't coming back until later in the night. Oh, man!! As I was wiping the sweat from my brow, I heard some cheerful screams. Santa had appeared on stage and was waving to the children. The line moved quickly, and the elf asked which $50 package we would like. We didn't want pictures today, just a quick chat to let Santa know what he should bring.

As usual, I made a fourty minute wait seem like I was in complete pain. Meaning I became a complete pain to deal with. When it was over, I thought, "that wasn't so bad."

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