Christmas in August

I have discovered something that can only be likened to trying to Christmas shop the Friday after Thanksgiving.

School shopping, any time or place during Texas' "tax-free weekend."

Who knew the parking lot at the enormous Grapevine Mills Mall would be completely full and I would have to park shark for 15 minutes before finding a spot? Who knew it would be as impossible to move around once inside as it is at Christmas?

All the other people who have already been doing it every year, that's who knew.

Why didn't somebody tell me?

Actually the shopping was a lot of fun despite all of that. Memaw and Papa went too and we bought the kid all kinds of stuff. I bought me all kinds of stuff, too, which I should not have done but I needed some new Big Dog stuff. And I definitely needed that new Colts cap. (Note: My definition of "needs" may vary slightly from Webster's) I also bought the "school supply bundle" at Kroger so we're set with the actual supplies and my wasn't that easy! Looks like we are pretty much set to go after one final trip to Target this week.

What was not fun was that we lost Papa at the mall. After talking to the kid about the importance of staying right there by one of us at all times and not wandering off, it was Papa who we were looking for at the end of the day. He was riding many of our packages around on his scooter with him so we didn't have to carry all of them, and not long before the mall closed said he was going to go outside and smoke and would meet us outside the store we had entered the mall through.

Unfortunately me and Memaw and the kid didn't make it back to that store in time to go out through it, so we had to walk quite a ways around to find a "generic" mall exit. We did and walked down to where he was to meet us - no Papa.

No biggie, he'll be at the car.

Nope. Not at the car. Nowhere to be seen, in fact.

Long story short - after Memaw went back inside try to find mall security, and I talked to some people at the store he was to have to come through and learned they hadn't seen him, and we speculated all the "what ifs"... we drove around the mall, and there he was... sitting outside an exit nowhere near where he and we were supposed to be.

He said he couldn't find the right store and finally went outside where he could, figuring we would find him "eventually." His cell phone was dead and his scooter battery was very nearly so itself. Ack.

All's well that ended well.

So it was a successful shopping day, but now today I feel like crap again. I went to the doctor on Friday, where I got a lung test, a breathing treatment, an inhaler, 3 prescriptions for an antiobiotic, cortisone and cough syrup, and a diagnosis of bronchitis. I was feeling better yesterday but by last night was feeling bad again and not any better this morning.

To top it off, it's going to be pouring the whole way home from work, from the looks of things. Oh hey, though, I got a new Big Dogs umbrella yesterday, so I'm all set.

Except of course that is it in the car.

It sure is Monday.