Scariest. Christmas. Ever.
Well, this is one for the ages. Everyone in the house's blood pressure has been maxed out and down to weak, piddling levels all in the duration of one hour. Around 8:30 we decided to go ahead and open our presents. Good, great, fantastic. We've been waiting all year, right? Well, something like that. We rip paper, open our respective gifts, say our customary words of thanks whlle unanimously agreeing that we all spent too much on each other, and otherwise be a family during X-mas time. I'd already picked up a portable CD/mp3/Atrac3 player, lounging pants, some nice shirts, a book, and numerous other things, so I was quite happy. I'd just finished busting open a beautiful picture for my room (Hey, I need some better scenery than an old Kathy Ireland poster.) and suddenly, I notice my parents are looking at each other, since this was supposedly my last gift.
"Where is it?"
"I don't know, I thought you put it up and wrapped it."
"Uh....no."
Now I'll just skip the tension part of the blog and say that my folks had misplaced a 400 something dollar digital camera, which by itself was worth at least twice of everything I'd received so far. For a good hour they looked around the house. No luck. They thought that it had been left at Best Buy, or been stolen, or any other list of miscreant acts. They kept thinking I was depressed that I wasn't getting this monstrous item--but it was the fact that they'd spent that much in the first place. But the worst part was easily that it was facing the prospect that they'd spent that much time and money into finding it, and then having nothing to show for it.
Everybody in the house began to feel sick at their stomach.
I was sitting in the living room struggling with one of the packages I already had when mom said "Well, I'll go check under the bed." It sounded absurd. The irony of finding something like that under a bed when I'd been notoriously doing that for years would just be too much to handle. But the words had a ring of truth in them. Dad had already gone downstairs to sit in front of his computer and mope, mom was still halfheartedly poking around. Well, she found it. It was like finding a river in the middle of the desert. Barriers fell down, smiles lit up faces, and sighs of relief passed through lips like wind through the trees.
Scariest. Christmas. Ever.
Well, this is one for the ages. Everyone in the house's blood pressure has been maxed out and down to weak, piddling levels all in the duration of one hour. Around 8:30 we decided to go ahead and open our presents. Good, great, fantastic. We've been waiting all year, right? Well, something like that. We rip paper, open our respective gifts, say our customary words of thanks whlle unanimously agreeing that we all spent too much on each other, and otherwise be a family during X-mas time. I'd already picked up a portable CD/mp3/Atrac3 player, lounging pants, some nice shirts, a book, and numerous other things, so I was quite happy. I'd just finished busting open a beautiful picture for my room (Hey, I need some better scenery than an old Kathy Ireland poster.) and suddenly, I notice my parents are looking at each other, since this was supposedly my last gift.
"Where is it?"
"I don't know, I thought you put it up and wrapped it."
"Uh....no."
Now I'll just skip the tension part of the blog and say that my folks had misplaced a 400 something dollar digital camera, which by itself was worth at least twice of everything I'd received so far. For a good hour they looked around the house. No luck. They thought that it had been left at Best Buy, or been stolen, or any other list of miscreant acts. They kept thinking I was depressed that I wasn't getting this monstrous item--but it was the fact that they'd spent that much in the first place. But the worst part was easily that it was facing the prospect that they'd spent that much time and money into finding it, and then having nothing to show for it.
Everybody in the house began to feel sick at their stomach.
I was sitting in the living room struggling with one of the packages I already had when mom said "Well, I'll go check under the bed." It sounded absurd. The irony of finding something like that under a bed when I'd been notoriously doing that for years would just be too much to handle. But the words had a ring of truth in them. Dad had already gone downstairs to sit in front of his computer and mope, mom was still halfheartedly poking around. Well, she found it. It was like finding a river in the middle of the desert. Barriers fell down, smiles lit up faces, and sighs of relief passed through lips like wind through the trees.
Scariest. Christmas. Ever.
