Twas the Night Before Christmas...Eve

Here I am in sunny Heathrow, Florida. It is the night before the night before Christmas, I have not purchased a single gift, and I have no idea what I am going to do to remedy that situation. I should be sleeping or at least making a list that, due to time constraints, cannot be checked twice, but I am not. I wonder what the rest of the Christmas celebrating world is doing tonight. If my house is any sort of indicator, they are all asleep and those who are not are playing on the internet. Maybe its because this year went by as fast as a night when I've had one too many cocktails or maybe its because I live in California and visit Florida for Christmas, but I'm just not in that holiday spirit.

It all started the day I got yelled at the train station. I was on my way to go shopping, I went through the wrong gate and Mr. Scrooge McMuni Man actually left his ticket booth to yell at me for five minutes. I promptly bought him a blow-up Grinch doll (on sale at Walgreens) and explained to him that he sucked for roughly five minutes. Usually, that sort of in your face revenge makes my day, but this time it did nothing but make me think about why people suck. Then there are those Salvation Army bell ringers. Although they are trying to do nothing but good, you can't help but hate them because of their stupid annoying bells. Finally, at the airport, this woman tried to cut in the Starbucks line because it was 6:00 in the morning and she was "really tired." That's so strange to be tired at that hour...

So, until today I was left with nothing but a whiny voice, a bah humbug spirit, and no ideas for my very last minute Christmas shopping. Then I heard about Roy. He's going home. He can't speak (which means we still won't know what really happened the night of October 3, 2003), but he'll be with his loved ones...maybe even the tigers. And that's when I remembered what Christmas is all about...getting presents.