A Short Story by Abigail and Jesse Pesta

I rolled out of bed on Christmas Eve feeling uncharitable. As usual, I’d put off shopping till the last minute. And the city was sure to be a zoo after the subway strike.

Like everyone else in town I’d wasted a week’s worth of psychic energy trying to find ways to get back and forth to work or really just get anywhere. No time for gift-shopping, no bill-paying, not even time to do laundry. Which meant that on top of everything else, I was out of underwear.

But none of this would deter me, for the simple reason that it was now or never. “Today I am going to successfully shop,” I thought, steeling myself for what I imagined would be bitter cold and bitter people.

To get into the holiday spirit, I popped into a Starbucks and grabbed a peppermint eggnog Christmas ham flavored latte. The crisp, wintry air put a snap in my step that heretofore had been lacking. Maybe this will be a good day after all, I said to myself, marching up the avenue in tight, wooden-soldier formation, elbow-to-elbow with my shopping comrades.

Fairly quickly a window display caught my eye. A drug store was running a holiday sale on six-packs of Hanes Her Way underwear. Given my laundry situation I could use a pack of those, I thought, slowing down for a closer look.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, my yuletide reverie was shattered. A woman behind me on the sidewalk barked in my ear, “Keep moving forward!”

Wow. 

In an instant, my mood swung like a pendulum from the happy anticipation of a six-pack of Hanes, to pure fury. Who do these people think they are, snarling at me while I’m window shopping for underpants?

I whipped around and looked her up and down. She was carrying a hat box with a big bow on it. She bared her teeth.

What happened next surprised even me. I barked right back at her, and I mean literally barked. The noise that came out of my mouth sounded something like a Doberman.

“Grrrraarrrrrrrarrrr!” I said.

Her eyes widened. She tightened her grip on the hat box.

She kept walking up the block and I followed, snarling occasionally so she wouldn’t forget, until she veered into a cupcake shop of all places. Safety among the muffins. “Merry Christmas!” I hollered.

Obviously, I had made a fool of myself. But part of the magic of New York is that all you need to do is go a few steps in any direction, and suddenly you’re a perfect stranger again. So I walked quickly, leaving the underwear purchase for another place and time.

Another good thing about the city is that as soon as you’ve gone and caused a spectacle, something happens that makes you feel like a paragon of virtue. It didn't take long.

As I was making a beeline for anonymity around the corner, I brushed past a guy trying to give a homeless man some gloves. “Want these gloves?” he said. “They’re warm! Come on, take ‘em. Free gloves!”

“Thanks,” the man said, taking the gloves as I walked by.

The glove-giver turned up the street and started walking right beside me. “Been trying to get rid of those gloves,” he said, “they don’t even match.” He snorted triumphantly but a little too hard, and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

Don’t engage, I said to myself. The barking thing was still fresh in mind.

But really, it was just what I needed to regain moral equilibrium. I mean, it’s one thing to bark like a dog at a woman carrying a hat box, but when you’re proud of screwing over a homeless man with gloves that don’t match, you’re talking about a whole different level of lack of self-awareness. It was as if Santa Claus had given me a special gift, the gift of someone to feel superior to.

With that, my shopping began in earnest. In the next few hours I covered lots of ground, buying things for my mom, my dad, my niece, my boyfriend, all without having to talk to anybody. I even found the perfect gift for an officemate who fashions themselves a connoisseur of food, a box of chocolate wasabi truffles. This was a real triumph. After all, the only thing more specific than knowing your friend will appreciate wasabi chocolates is knowing a store that sells them. Of course, the downside is that $30 for six truffles is $29 more than a Mounds bar.

But anyway it was now past lunchtime and I needed some food of my own to refuel for the trip back home. Lucky for me, a newsstand in the subway was selling bags of my favorite potato chips, sour cream and chives.

I ripped open the bag and wondered for a moment if the purchase would cause me to miss my train. Indeed it turned out to be a bad call.

An approaching train made its rumbling presence known. I took off at a speedy trot down the stairs toward the platform. But then, in my rush, I flew into the air as surely as if I had slipped on a banana peel.

Down the stairs I went in a kaleidoscope of flailing limbs and wasabi truffles, while thinking to myself, “I have no control over this outcome but I hope I don’t spill my potato chips.”

A good samaritan rushed over. “Are you okay?” he asked. I must have really taken an insane looking fall because next he asked me, “Do you know where you are?”

“Yeah I know where I am,” I said. “I’m in hell.”

“Well at least you’ve got some potato chips,” he said. Lying there on my back, I was holding the bag straight up in the air.

The next day at Christmas dinner at a friend’s house, I still felt sore.

I limped through the front door, went straight to the sofa by the fireplace, and plopped down. It was my first chance to tell the story from start to finish, and I took advantage of the opportunity to edit out the most mortifying parts. 

“So I’m about to get the underpants and then this woman screams at me to keep moving,” I told them. “Before I could even ask her, ‘What would Jesus do?’ a gang of holiday shoppers formed a circle and started beating her with candy canes and ear muffs,” I lied.

When I got to the part about falling down the subway stairs, the bag of chips got a laugh but for some reason people didn’t believe that I’d actually fallen.

“Trust me,” I said. “My shoulders are so sore.” 

And then came the payoff. “That sounds simply terrible,” my friend's mom said, “can I give you a little massage?” She stepped behind the couch and started doing a gentle rubdown to my shoulders.

Did she believe me, or was she just keeping the joke going?

Either way, I relaxed into the cushions. The lights on the Christmas tree twinkled. The logs in the fireplace cracked. Outside on the sidewalk, a group of carolers launched into “Good King Wenceslas,” and several people moved toward the window to listen and marvel. Life is weird. “Ahhh,” I said, “This is the best gift ever. A little to the left.”