HOLIDAY SHOPPING

Around 4:30pm or so, I headed downtown to do some holiday shopping. First though, I stopped off in Chinatown for a bowl of pho tai at Pho Van on Main. Some of you know my addiction to good pho, and again I suckled at its sweet teat once more. I tell you, it’s the broth that does me in everytime. So rich… so sweet… so aromatic.

Satiated with my pho, I proceeded downtown to get my Mom her gift and to scout out my Dad’s gift. I braved myself for the crowds, but to be honest, it wasn’t bad at all. It didn’t seem any busier than a regular Friday night. That allowed to me look in a lot of different places.

I managed to buy a pair of shoes for myself, which is big, since I usually buy shoes every 9 months or so. I tried on three different pairs of shoes, with two different sizes per pair. I felt awful since I know I’d hate to wait on someone like that. I did manage to find a pair I liked and it did fit, so the dude got his commission.

I also picked out my Mom’s gift. It cost substantially less compared to gifts of previous years, since I’m dirt poor now. I hope she likes it. I checked out my Dad’s gift, but I have to confer with my sister before purchasing it.

I took the bus home and realized two more people were leaving the College for the holidays. Dana is flying out on Saturday and Miriam is going on Sunday. I said my goodbye to Dana and he gave me his extra set of Christmas lights. That was very nice of him. I’ll be putting those up tomorrow. I also stopped in to see Miriam, she gave me a jar of pickles and her leftover dinner. I like it when people give me food.

On my way back to my room, I ran into Chris who wanted to go McDonald’s for some ice cream. I agreed to go with him and he drove us to the on-campus McDonald’s. That place is convenient, but after dark it gets a bit weird. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone there and something is broken. It’s usually two things: either the ice cream machine or the debit machine, but never both at the same time. I swear there must be some common part that goes into both machines and they only have one of them, so they alternate between having no ice cream or no debit machine.

Well, tonight, it was time for no ice cream, so Chris was out of luck. He had a craving for ice cream, so he got the next best thing… a cafe americano from Starbucks.

Alright, I have to go watch some TV now.