In case you're counting.....

.... there are just five more days till Christmas. (Note that I did not type "Holiday.")  There are five more days till Christmas Day, as in Merry Christmas. (But let's not get started with that again.)

If you want to know how frantic people are getting this close to Christmas Eve and Day, just pop into a grocery store.  Which is what we did this afternoon, after having lunch in town.  We have a very large HEB supermarket in town here, and honestly (with apologies to HEB), I hate that store. I hated that store in Clear Lake, and I hate it still up here.  I can walk into that store in a perfectly happy mood and then walk out with an attitude.

There is just a certain frantic energy in their stores that I cannot handle, not do I even want to try and cope with anything that frantic and frenzied.  First of all, the music that is piped into that store is pure craziness.... if they're not playing some sort of rap-crap, then they're making you listen to country-western songs that aren't soft and soapy, but fast and annoying.   I don't like many country-western songs as it is, but throw in those 'shoot my horse and I'll hang you up to dry on barbed-wire' type of songs, and I'm just about ready to run out of the store.

The HEB aisle placement makes so sense whatsoever. Not only do you have to go up and down some of the aisles, but you have to go sideways in certain sections.... so if you've forgotten something at one end, there's a maze of north/south and east/west aisles to get through before you find that one item------ and usually, the one item you overlooked on your list is not printed on their signs above the aisles, so good luck in finding that one last thing.

To add insult to injury in that store, when you get to the registers, the moving belts that you put your groceries on is on the right side, not the left.... which is fine if you're left-handed, but most of the world is not, so as you're getting groceries from your cart onto that belt, you can't always trust your left hand to do what your right hand can do.

Then the people they hire to pack your grocery bags.... anyone and everyone on this planet who will put a huge bag of cat food on top of a dozen eggs or a bag of grapes will be working at HEB.  They will be tossing fruit into bags as if they're made of rocks, and how about three heavy bottles of juice into one of their dental-floss-thin plastic bags......... it just never fails.  Note to HEB:  I'd rather pack my own groceries than un-pack the careless mis-packing of your employees.

I hate, hate, hate that store.   But it's five days till Christmas.  I should have known better than to go in there in the first place.  And... the one bright spot in today's shopping experience..... the cashier, who had probably been on her feet behind that register for hours, handed me the receipt and she looked right at me and smiled and said "Merry Christmas!"   Not Happy Holiday, but Merry Christmas.  Merry Christmas!  I guess I'll be going back into that store after all, but hopefully not till after Christmas Day.