Shop in the mall or not at all?

So it seems Al Qaeda will be frequenting our malls this shopping season. It sounds like the best reason I know of to shop by phone or the Internet, but then, I’ll take any reason I can get to stay out of them. I believe in Agoraphobia (think of it as a deep need to stay home) to the utmost, and now, rather than dread it, I enjoy it every chance I get.

A few weeks ago I was way ahead of the game as far as Christmas shopping goes. The two stockings I take the most joy in stuffing belong to Kayla and Weston. Dad’s was one I loved stuffing too. So this year I’m stuffing one for everybody, but you know how it is--everybody has those people on their list that are fun to shop for. Every pink and purply sparkly thing is perfect for them, all the smell goods, candles, the little things that cost a bundle. Then there are the others. Fortunately, they’re few in my family. I’m speaking of both.

Lisa and I take turns driving Kayla to ballet lessons in Hobbs twice a week, but a couple of weeks ago, we ended up going together. While we waited on Kayla, I had Lisa run me to Big Lot’s. I got lost in the Christmas stuff there and Lisa remarked that the thought of Christmas was sad for her this year. I said, “Oh, yeah, because of Dad….” She meant everybody missing. I said, “Well, you had Christmas last year. (Some of you may remember that I did not. We decorated and it never got further). Maybe you should skip it every once in a while, so you can appreciate it!” She laughed and I know it will kick in, just as I know there will always be the shadow of what once was.

On the darker side, our small town suffered the tragic shooting of a woman my age that worked at a convenience store here. The murderers are ages fifteen and sixteen, the driver twenty. They have all been arrested, and I heard something about a vendetta the young men had with the clerk about a month ago. It turns out this clerk was raising her granddaughter and was about to take a month off from work to visit her father who was ill. I sincerely hope the young men are tried as just that. Men.

Lovington doesn’t get many murders. We did have one a few years ago just a block over, and it was a double murder. Someone walked in, shot the man of the house in the head as he sat in his chair. His wife sat and watched from another chair in the same room and within seconds the eldest son, the Jr., walked down the hallway and was shot in the head too. His football career, his life, ended at sixteen years of age in that hallway. The unfortunate woman was not shot. The FBI was brought in, for a while we heard something about a mafia group out of Phoenix, and then after that, we heard nothing. Or maybe we did and it got covered up with other noise.

Terror is everywhere, and I guess practiced or unpracticed, it is all just as deadly. Just as life changing. Our lives are changed in one quick second, at least as far as we know. The child or the man has been planning it all along. Deal with it. Our lives have been changed and we are stupid if we don’t act accordingly. We live in a scary world, but as Mom says, Christmas still comes. And like her, I plan on seeing it through Weston’s eyes. This year anyway. That’s the plan. Everybody should see it through the eyes of a child, so if you have to borrow one, try to do that too. Our troops do and if they can celebrate, any of us should be able to. I speak for myself.

By the way, gUnZ uP welcomes another writer aboard. Raymond Keen will be joining us to write whatever trips his trigger. He is a Vietnam vet, a retired psychologist, a poet and a supporter of our troops. Check him out in the sidebar. He currently resides in the same country as Gunny John and SgtMaj. Ploskonka. Japan is safe!

Semper Fi!
De’on