~ Tommy x Ranboo ~ book of dares {DISCONNECTED}

~3~

-Ranboo- December 22nd

"Is this a Joke?" I asked Minx. And the way she looked at me, I knew that I was the joke. Oh, the impertinence! I should have know better than to mention Christmas movies. Cleary, no invitation was too small for Tommy's sarcasm. And the note: 5. Look for the warm woolen mittens with the reindeer on them, please.

Could there be any doubt what my next destination was supposed to be ? Macy's Two day's before Christmas Eve. She might as well gift-wrapped my face and pumped the carbon dioxide in. Or hung me on a noose of credit card receipts. A department store two day's before Christmas Eve is like a city in a state of siege-wild eyed consumers battling in aisles over who gets the last sea horse snow globe to give to their respective great-aunt Marys. I couldn't I wouldn't. I had to. I tried to distract myself by debating the difference between wool and woolen, then expanding it to include wood vs wooden and golden vs golden. But this distraction only only lasted time it took to walk the stairs from the subway, since when I emerged on Herald Square, I was nearly capsized by the throngs and their shopping bags. The knell of A Salvation Army bell ringer added to the grimness, I had no doubt that if I didn't escape soon, a children's choir would pop up and carol me to death. I walked inside Macy's and faced the pathetic spectacle of store full of shoppers, none of whom were shopping for themselves. Without the instant gratification of self-aimed purchase, everyone walked around in the tactical stupor of the financially obligated. At this late in the season, all the fallbacks were being used. Dad was getting a tie, Mom was getting a scarf, and the kids were getting sweaters, whether they liked it or not. I had done all of my shopping online from 2am. to 4am. on the morning of December 3; the gifts now sat at their respective houses, to be opened at the new year. My mother had left me gifts to open in her house, while my Dad had slipped me a hundred-dollar bill and told me to go to town with it. In fact his exact words were, "Don't spend it all on booze and women" --(My dad didn't know I'm bisexual and I didn't planning to tell him any time soon)-- The implication being, of course, that I should spend at least some of it in booze, women and men in my case. Had there been a way to get a gift certificate for booze, women and men, I was sure he would have made his secretary run out and get me one over her lunch break.

The salespeople were so shell-shocked that a question like "Where do I find the warm woolen mittens with reindeer on them?" didn't seem the least bit strange. Eventually , I found myself in Outer Garments, wondering what, short of an earplug, would count as an Inner Garment.

I had always felt that mittens were a few steps back on the evolutionary scale-- why, I wondered, would we want to make ourselves into less agile version of a lobster? but my disdain for mittens took on a new depth when looking at Macy's holiday offerings. There were mittens shaped like gingerbreads men and mittens decorated in tinsel. One pair of mittens simulated the thumb of a hitchhiker; the destination was apparently, the North Pole. In front of my very eyes, a middle-aged woman took a pair off the rack and placed them in the pile she'd grown in her arms. "Really?" I found myself saying out loud. "Excuse me?" she said, irritated. "Aesthetic and utilitarian considerations aside," I said, "Those mittens don't particularly make sense. Why would you want hitchhike to the North Pole? Isn't the whole gimmick of Christmas that there's home delivery? You get up there, all you're going to find is a bunch of exhausted, grumpy elves. Assuming, of course, that you accept the mythical presence of a workshop up there, when we all know there isn't even a pole at the North Pole, and if global warning continues, there won't be ice either." "Why don't you just fuck off?" the woman replied Then she took her mittens and got out of there.