Why can’t I go to shopping school?

THIS is ridiculous.

I am about to engage in the most popular leisure sport of the 21st century.
I want to be good at it. I want to be able to compete at masters level. Possibly veteran, given my age.

But I can’t find a coach, or a book of handy tips, or even a mentor.

No one to help me on the road to the shopping championships.

There are more advertisements for shopping than there are for football.

Twelve Shopping Days to Christmas! Take The Kids Shopping! (are they mad!). Shop Until You Drop!

But no one is doing any training. Even the professionals aren’t taking it seriously. I saw a sign yesterday that actually said there were 12 shopping days to Christmas, which is rubbish. I think they were leaving out Sundays, which means they must have come from another planet, because in 2005 even Sunday is a shopping day.

Nothing is sacred. Certainly not Sundays and probably not even Christmas.

This is not a criticism. I love Christmas. I love getting presents and I love giving them and I love buying them; frittering my meagre income on things that will — probably before Boxing Day is over — end up in the vacuum cleaner or the dog.

This year I am going to be prepared. I’m going to buy a vat of super glue and a job lot of assorted batteries, so that no matter what breaks, or runs down, I can be a hero.

I don’t need religious symbols to make me feel good about Christmas. I just need Christmas. All that rushing through to the bedroom with secret parcels; paralysing family members of a nervous disposition by screaming: “Don’t look in there!” as they innocently open a drawer that usually contains tea towels, but now contains my wife’s new portable welder. I can’t wait to see her face.

And then there are the grandchildren. Oh, it’ll end in tears; and hours spent hovering around the lavatory waiting for the drawing pin to reappear. I love it.

I’m not expecting a Christmas like the picture on a tin of festive biscuits. I want a Christmas with all the raw edges. It’s a shame Aunt Ethel died.

She was always good for a tantrum because someone gave her a blue chiffon scarf and everyone knows she hates blue, and that chiffon gives her a rash, and she should never have come, she didn’t want to in the first place and everybody would have been better off if she’d had Christmas on her own.

But by 7.30pm she always forgot Christmas, the scarf, and the amount of sherry she’d had, and set her sights on New Year, singing the first line of Auld Lang Syne over and over.

But that’s the past. I’m here now and I’m going to have a good time.

But how am I going to get the best out of the aprés-Christmas if I can’t crack the avant‑Christmas?

There are training camps for other body contact sports – how to hand-off in a low tackle, how to make a dummy pass.

Why can’t I get training in haggling the price down, or assertively forcing my way past the meandering idiots who block both sides of the elevator?

There must a trick to saying: “Excuse me madam, but I was waiting to be served 15 minutes before you inflicted your hideous, multi-coloured striped frock on this unsuspecting queue,” but saying it nicely, so people don’t mutter about you being a surly old man.

But no; it’s every man for himself in the world of shopping. There are no Olympic golds.
No one loves a winner if it means they got to the counter first, or bought something cheaper than you.

We should all remember that Christmas is still a couple of weeks away. We don’t have to love everyone yet.

There are more advertisements for shopping than there are for football.

Twelve Shopping Days to Christmas! Take The Kids Shopping! (are they mad!). Shop Until You Drop!

But no one is doing any training. Even the professionals aren’t taking it seriously. I saw a sign yesterday that actually said there were 12 shopping days to Christmas, which is rubbish. I think they were leaving out Sundays, which means they must have come from another planet, because in 2005 even Sunday is a shopping day.

Nothing is sacred. Certainly not Sundays and probably not even Christmas.

This is not a criticism. I love Christmas. I love getting presents and I love giving them and I love buying them; frittering my meagre income on things that will — probably before Boxing Day is over — end up in the vacuum cleaner or the dog.

This year I am going to be prepared. I’m going to buy a vat of super glue and a job lot of assorted batteries, so that no matter what breaks, or runs down, I can be a hero.

I don’t need religious symbols to make me feel good about Christmas. I just need Christmas. All that rushing through to the bedroom with secret parcels; paralysing family members of a nervous disposition by screaming: “Don’t look in there!” as they innocently open a drawer that usually contains tea towels, but now contains my wife’s new portable welder. I can’t wait to see her face.

And then there are the grandchildren. Oh, it’ll end in tears; and hours spent hovering around the lavatory waiting for the drawing pin to reappear. I love it.

I’m not expecting a Christmas like the picture on a tin of festive biscuits. I want a Christmas with all the raw edges. It’s a shame Aunt Ethel died.

She was always good for a tantrum because someone gave her a blue chiffon scarf and everyone knows she hates blue, and that chiffon gives her a rash, and she should never have come, she didn’t want to in the first place and everybody would have been better off if she’d had Christmas on her own.

But by 7.30pm she always forgot Christmas, the scarf, and the amount of sherry she’d had, and set her sights on New Year, singing the first line of Auld Lang Syne over and over.

But that’s the past. I’m here now and I’m going to have a good time.

But how am I going to get the best out of the aprés-Christmas if I can’t crack the avant‑Christmas?

There are training camps for other body contact sports – how to hand-off in a low tackle, how to make a dummy pass.

Why can’t I get training in haggling the price down, or assertively forcing my way past the meandering idiots who block both sides of the elevator?

There must a trick to saying: “Excuse me madam, but I was waiting to be served 15 minutes before you inflicted your hideous, multi-coloured striped frock on this unsuspecting queue,” but saying it nicely, so people don’t mutter about you being a surly old man.

But no; it’s every man for himself in the world of shopping. There are no Olympic golds.
No one loves a winner if it means they got to the counter first, or bought something cheaper than you.

We should all remember that Christmas is still a couple of weeks away. We don’t have to love everyone yet.