Santa ain't cheap!

On our way to the mall yesterday, I asked Dar to promise me she would 'do something' with me once we got there.  She looked at me and said "Since when do I have a choice in the matter once you get an idea into your head?  Tell me ONE TIME in thirty three years I have gotten my way in ANYTHING?"  I thought about it for a minute and said "Okay.  You and I are going to go get our picture taken with Santy Clause today."  She started to give me some bullshit about not having earrings in and blahblahblah (I quit listening and allowed her to vent 'to the hand') as I parked the car and led her to the little accessory store that had hypoallergenic (Me: Quit making excuses...You are powerless here...You've already admitted defeat so you are just prolonging the inevitable...Just pick some DAMN EARRINGS so I can go sit on an old man's lap and potentially mess with his head) earrings.  Then I realized that since I have dialed up my inner dyke notch and quit carrying a purse I had no storebought lipz with me, and as I have no upper lip of myne own I had to remedy that situation before I could even begin to think about having a picture taken.  I followed my nose into Belks' shoe department but Dar redirected me to the makeup counters before I could really get my shoe groove on.  She is good like that. Prolly because she knows that if she doesn't NIP IT IN THE BUD, I am gone for hours. Anyway, I tried at four different counters to find a lipstick that didn't make me look like Bozo the clown before I found someone willing to take my money.  My good buddies at the Estee Lauder counter (I'm a Cinnabar girl these days) were happy to relieve me of TWENTY THREE dollars so that I could have a plump juicy (oddly grape scented) non-collegen injected pretend upper lip.  TWENTY THREE dollars!  Was I HIGH?  I wish.  At least then I'd have had an excuse.

So I put on the lip and we proceed out to Santy's little Happy Place, where he sits on his Santy throne, and we walk up to get in line.  My eye falls on the sign that says "No cameras" and then drifts over to the sandwich boards set up with the available photography packages available. Folks, I am all about stimulating the economy, and I love me some Santa Claus and I REALLY wanted to tell him what. I. want.  But I am sorry.  One fucking, and I don't say fucking lightly in this case, but ONE FUCKING PICTURE was TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS.  Uh uh.  No way, Jose'. I already had twenty three invested in a lip, I was NOT going to compound this travesty by spending twenty five more bucks on a picture.  Sorry, folks, but your online holiday greetings are going to have to wait a week or so, but I have an even mo' betterer one planned for you, so do not fret.  But I do want to say that Santa done harshed my shopping buzz just a wee bit.

My trip to the casino was pretty uneventful.  I managed to play for about four hours on twenty bucks playing penny slots, but my sister in law was not so lucky.  She forgot to bring a book, so once she was busted she came and watched me play rather than returning to the room for the evening.  Every time she'd come sit by me, I'd start losing, so in my head it was her fault.  Then I started getting claustrophobic and feeling like I was under a microscope

 or like someone sitting at a feast with a hungry homeless person watching me eat, so I gave her ten bucks and told her I was moving because she was bad luck for me.  She managed to play on that for another hour or so, but then ran out again, at which point I cashed out and counted myself lucky to be going home with money left.  If we'd have stayed, we'd have played until we were both broke, so cutting our losses was not a bad thing.

Today is going to be a nice quiet (HA) day at home here with the birdies.  It is nice and cold outside, so I am going to make a pot of potato soup and do laundry and piddle.  Tomorrow Dar and I have really big plans so I need to rest up, and *pointedly* she'd better too.  Remember, only 19 shopping days left til Christmas!

Lagniappe: