Gift Hunt, Part 4

Note to Anne: Don't read this unless you want to know what I'm giving you for Christmas.

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So I was becoming more and more desperate, hunting for a gift for Anne. This isn't an unusual situation; it's usually down to the wire with her. I stumbled across this article in the Star-Ledger: "Top 10 choices for last-minute gifts." For her.

Number six on the list: ugly socks, with the tagline, "The point of these isn't the way they look, it's the way they feel. Whipped up from some surely ghastly combination of polyesters, these socks look like they're made from Muppet fur and feel like clotted cream. Feet wearing these socks are happy feet."

I thought, "That's great! Anne has feet! What a perfect gift!" No, I actually thought something more along the lines of Anne, like most girls, has both a casual sock fetish and a soft, fuzzy object fetish. Besides, it just seemed like a better gift than my other idea, which was a vase full of paper flowers.

So, I was at the mall today. Mom's conditioned me to stay away from the mall during the holidays, but I've gotta say that I really had no problems whatsoever. I found a parking spot that was pretty close to the building. It only took like twenty minutes to find fuzzy socks at both Macy's and Nordstrom's, and I found a cash register with only one guy in line. Granted, that guy was trying to redeem a gift voucher or something, and I think it would've been a less interminable bureaucratic process had he actually been making a hostile takeover bid of Nordstrom's, but the total time from locking my front door to unlocking my front door was less than an hour and a half.

First I went to Macy's to find Hue Furry Socks, which were touted by the Star-Ledger. Hue is the manufacturer's name, and their motto is "Many Colors, One Hue." Many colors, maybe, but they're all freaking hideous, as you can see if you click on the Amazon link. Macy's also had them in electric pink and fuschia, and maybe some other colors that I couldn't see because my eyes were burning. Still, the article said that the socks were gonna be ugly.

I tried Nordstrom's instead. Now, as it turns out, department stores stock women's socks in the section called "Women's Accessories," which is full of purses and hoisery and feather boas, and is invariably right next to the "Intimate Apparel" section. I'm feeling a bit less-than-manly browsing through this section, and I have this urge to announce to everybody — especially the women around me — that I am buying a gift and I am in no way personally interested in any of the merchandise in this area of the store. That being said, those socks are incredibly fuzzy. I might've bought myself a pair, except I already felt gay enough as it was.

Christmas shopping done. Only 369 shopping days till Christmas 2005.