I drove into the Target (Targaé) parking lot for three whole minutes this afternoon before the magnitude of the gridlock hit me and I turned myself around and eecked out. As I sat in a literal parking lot (no, this is not a euphemism for the 405), I wondered how we have come to be so brainwashed and manipulated by corporate America that we rush, honk, and stress on a Sunday afternoon to spend our hard earned cashola on things that will, at best, desinigrate into dust, and, at worst, clutter our closets in symbolic representation of our worse emotional baggage...OK, I just had to get that out of my system. (deep sigh)...Happy Holidays!

Aside parking lots and Target stores, the holidays are historically a time of bad decisions for me. The following are the mistakes I've made so far...and we haven't even gotten to X-mas yet.

1) Buying a bucket of chocolates wrapped as if they were Christmas tree ornaments (I thought I'd give them to my office co-workers on Thursday before I leave). What I didn't realize is that this would entail them sitting in my apartment for a week...do we really think they'll last till Thursday? I've already had four.

2) Forgetting to scope out my apartment for things to "re-gift" (hey, I purchased all my gifts...I'm just sayin').

3) Not buying a full-sized tree (I mean my Charlie Brown tree is cute and all, but aren't I old enough for a grown up tree...34).

4) Failing to find a boyfriend to snuggle under my tree (not to put "blame" on myself...but geez, what is up?!).

Just for today, I am ready for the holidays to be over.