Watch Out, Jack!

Today is Shopping Day for me, and that means it'll be my first foray into the consumer jungles, searching for the appropriate items to placate my friends and family.

None of my friends and I have settled whether or not we're exchanging gifts, so I assume I'll end up shucking out cash for presents only to never be repaid. That's the sweetest part of Christmas, I think. Being poor and not being able to eat for the first few months of the next year.

My parents wanted to "reward" my "good report card" by giving me money, which they used to do in high school back before I had an income. Unfortunately, it was also their tradition as I was a child to give me money to help me with my christmas spending, so I could make sure to afford gifts for everyone. With college's crazy quarter schedules, this is the first time both of those things directly coincide. So now, my "reward money" is basically just me taking cash from their wallets to buy things for them on a list, that they were probably going to buy anyway, meaning it's less of a Christmas bonus, and more of an excuse for me to do their shopping for them. I'd feel less angry probably if I had gotten to do all my shopping yesterday like I'd planned to, but unfortunately, my mom decided to do everything in her power to prevent the first half of yesterday from being mildly tolerable. It's not really worth it to complain about that though, because nobody really gives two shits. I could come up with some pretty funny arguments my mom and I have had though! Here are a couple:

- Whether or not I am an alcoholic: This is a new classic, the way Alien Resurrection can be a new classic on AMC. My dad offered me a drink of champagne for Thanksgiving and then I had a beer later in the night. My parents and I have drank together before, and I've never been drunk or acted negatively because of drinking while around them. I told my mom that my friends and I were making a Mario Kart drinking game, which she failed to understand we had never even played, but these bits of information were enough to prompt her to start a two hour argument beginning at 1:30 AM Thanksgiving night, as I was about to go to bed. Her basic argument was that if it was true that I drink less than almost anyone who drinks at school, everybody at school, including me, must be alcoholics. This argument pretty much amounted to the logical explanation of showing a Creationist some dinosaur bones and waiting for an apology.

- Who Cares if You Play Poker Badly: This is another Thanksgiving Night massacre, from earlier on, when my mom was "joke-gloating" every time she won a hand in our family poker game. After the first seven times she did it, and no one was laughing, I got aggravated and lashed out by correcting her on how to play. The problem with poker is, it's hard to use any sort of strategy against a bunch of people who don't know what the fuck they're doing. In that instance it becomes more like babysitting than fun. Refusing to listen to any advice I'd give her, she began a now-famous argument about "who cares if you know what you're doing as long as you win." To which I replied, "I suppose a baseball game could be played by two teams of retarded people bunting in runs against each other for nine innings. At the end, you'd probably have a winner, but that doesn't mean anybody had a good time at the game." Then she began a sub-argument about how much of the game was luck. The stupid thing is, in order to accept that there are professional poker competitions, you also need to accept that there has to be a base level of skill that can be accrued through strategy and continued playing, regardless of what "luck" occurs and what cards come up. Most people do play to win, although I also like to play for the sake of playing, but if you're playing to win, it would do you well to learn consistently satisfying strategies to help you succeed. Anyone can win a hand in Poker. Especially if you're just going in every hand.

- Don't Tell Me Who We're Not Friends With: I walked into my mom's room to say hello. She told me that my old high school was having their winter christmas show. I told her that we aren't friends with anyone who goes there anymore. She began to rant that she was friends with one family that still has a kid there and I can't tell her who we can and can't be BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH---I didn't waste the time to argue this one. I don't care who she's friends with, I just didn't want to go. Sometimes I think she just likes to argue.

I think I will get her a book on conflict resolution for Christmas, but I can't think of a version of reality in which that would not start another argument.