#30: Christmas Shopping Advice for Guys. November 9, 2019.

Sorry, I know I haven’t posted in more than a month. I have not been well through most of it. No worries.

Regardless, here’s a Quora article that I posted months ago. I waited until closer to the Holiday Season to copy it here. It’s a true story.

Best Christmas Gift Ever

What do you think is the best/cleverest last minute Christmas gift you’ve ever given?

Paul Cuadrado, Founder of globalenglishtutor.com at Global English (2018-present)

I have been overseas for most of the past two decades. However, I do remember Christmas gift shopping and its associated hazards/challenges from way back.

As a man I refused to fight the crowds and stand in long lines waiting to buy that season’s hottest item. Oh hell no.

I also did not want to have to stand in a crowded aisle and dodge excited little kids who were eagerly assailing their parents with guilt trips for saying, “You don’t need that. You never even wanted it until your sister did.”

Beyond the omnipresent noise, the kid mayhem, and the befuddled adult postured frustrations, there were the endless options to choose from. I’d find myself being stared down by 2,086 action figures in multiple poses and sporing a myriad of “special edition” accoutrements. If I bought last month’s “hot item” instead of this month’s, I’d get a, “Thanks, Uncle Paul,” and pouty lips. Shopping for adults was no better.

After two years of that in my very early 20’s, I decided to try a different strategy. I’d wait until Christmas Eve to do my shopping. Yes, ’twas the night before Christmas. This is one of the best ideas I had ever come up with.

This is what I discovered. The shelves were bare. Of those 2,086 action figures to choose from, only three were left and one was opened and broken. So I bought one, leaving the last for some other guy. Choosing clothes, electronics, appliances, perfumes were all much the same way.

The pretty girl at the make up counter had three fragrances for me to sniff, not 27.

I once grabbed the last VCR off the shelf and it was the one my fiancee was lusting after. Hey, it was the early 80s, VCR’s were hot.

Beyond the absence of maddening crowds and obscenely excessive choices, there was this unexpected bonus.

Every other shopper was a guy too. No, not a man, they are too serious. These were guys, we were all guys, shopping guy-style. Get what you need, pay cash, and get the hell out.

Yep, no credit card or check writing to wait on, guys back then all paid in cash. Like Oriental sex, in and out, done quick was the way guys shopped back then.

After one of my such December 24th shopping adventures, I needed to make a market stop, pick up some victuals to fix for my quick dinner that night. I’d only grab a few items and be done.

However, in my walking toward the store from my car, I spotted three guys huddled against the cold around a 55 gallon drum trash barrel, they had a fire going strong in the barrel.

I bought my meat, bread and produce for my meal and walked back to my car. Started her up and for some reason sat there looking at the three men shivering around that barrel. I rolled down my window hoping to hear their words. No, I don’t know why.

Clearly, I heard one say, “Now hang in there, Dude. Sto’ close at 9:00. They night crew start threwin’ out they old fruit and shits right affer. We be eattin’ good in a hour.”

I rolled up my window, turned off the engine and went back into the market.

About ten minutes later I came out with a dozen cans of hearty soups, reusable bowls and eating utensils and a can opener. I handed this to these men saying, “Merry Christmas to you, Good Gentlemen.” Then I went back into the grocery.

I emerged more than an hour later with my shopping cart filled with non-perishable food items. Yes, store hours had ended but the night manager could see that I was about to drop a couple of hundred bucks and kept one register open. The manager even sent a night stock clerk out to help me load the car. Before driving away, I stopped to hand these three men a fully cooked ham, a loaf of bread, a pot, a pan, a cooking spoon and other things.

One man said, “You a Christmas angel, a miracle.

The second man said, “Thank you, sir. Thank you so much.”

The third man somewhat surprised me when he said, “We are a Band of Brothers as desperate as all men were on the fields of Agincourt.”

The remainder of the food, I took to a nearby Church and made a donation to their food bank.

That was a good Christmas Eve.