'Tis the Season for a Assault and Battery...

fa,lah,lah,lah,lah, lah, lah...lah...HI-YAH!

I strive to be a reasonably pleasant human being. I try to remember to be polite and appreciative to retail sales people where I shop and wait staff at restaurants I dine, thanking them for their services. But, there are just some times when I find myself wanting to wring another person's neck--hence the reason for new holiday subtitle for my blog.

I came as close as I have ever come to bitch-slapping a checkout person this week. And, I have had moments even now, days later, where I fight the impulse to get in my car and drive 20 minutes back to the store and whack her upside the head.

The rush to get Christmas gifts has been on, for the MomCat household. Knowing I had several other things looming in my future, like my freelance article deadline and the very important holiday parties with friends, I wanted to finish my gift quest early. So, my husband and I met for dinner with our two kids and then split up, each taking a child to do some of the shopping for our immediate family.

I decided to head to our local wholesale warehouse to scope out what sort of Christmas deals they had and pick up some much needed dog food in bulk for our pooch. While there, I noticed that they still had a DVD that Santa intends to bring for my son and that we plan to get for my niece for several dollars cheaper than we'd seen it anywhere else. So, I buzzed the hubs to confirm and decided to buy the videos then.

The only problem was that my two-year-old daughter was with me at the time. After a carefully orchestrated "look here's a GREAT princess book" distraction, I slipped the videos under a giant bag of fish filets and headed for the checkout. Once we got to the front, I again distracted my daughter long enough to put the videos on the belt to be checked out, disguising them behind several boxes and the filets, so that she could not see them from her vantage point in the cart. Feeling like I was quite clever and almost home free, I motioned for the checker's attention after she finished the previous person's transaction.

"Be careful with those few things there behind the boxes..." I said, winking so she knew I was disguising something.

(As if it was not already quite obvious by the wall of boxes I'd made on the checkout.)

"What? Do you mean THESE?" she said, picking up and waving both videos directly in front of my daughter's face in a mocking motion.

My face fell and all feelings of holiday good cheer and charity rushed from my body and were replaced with sharp daggers of Grinch-like anger, which I shot at the checkout girl most seriously.

"What are you DOING?" I said in disbelief.

With gritted teeth I kept a fake smile planted on my face, hoping to convince my daughter that nothing was awry and to think nothing of the Santa gift that she'd just had waved in her face.

"Those were SUPPOSED to be a surprise."

The checker immediately put them down and mumbled something about thinking I was just kidding about how important the movie was to my kids. But, hello? Is it just me, or was there a serious lack of gray matter in her head? It is Christmas. How many parents try to sneak gifts across that checkout while distracting their kids?

Telling my husband later on, he said what I wondered, "I bet she did it on purpose. She had to have known what you meant."

Fortunately, my daughter who has a memory of an elephant has made no mention of this video or seeing it. I am hoping she has forgotten it all or that she doesn't connect that Mom bought it when it shows up in her brother's stocking on Christmas day. It is hard enough keeping a seven-year-old believing in the red suit, but if his two-year-old sister starts to call foul, I'm in serious trouble!