Last night Lily and I left work early to catch the 5:22 PM train. The plan was to go to Toys R Us and pick up toys for all the kids we know.

It went well except we got charged twice for one of the items. Lily always checks the receipts before we leave the store so we got it fixed immediately. The customer service lady actually refunded the toy twice and we had to correct her so we didn’t walk out with a free toy. It’s the season and we just wanted to be charged for what we bought and not get anything we did not pay for.

Once we got to the car we realized that one of the kids (not ours) was getting an er, really cheap toy. I would have hated to become that kid’s Uncle who he actually wants cash from instead of a toy. We went back and exchanged it for something nicer.

There seems to be some psychological thing with kids and toy shopping. All kids that I know recognize that grown ups buy toys for other kids, but their toys all come from Santa. I used to have the same thing. Birthday toys are from grown ups, but Santa gets 100% credit on Christmas day. Santa can do no wrong and the kids idolize him.

Santa reminds me of a politician running for office. I think December 25th he gets a bounce in the polls.

Shopping took less than 40 minutes and that is just not bad. I suggested to Lily that since we were so early that we go to the mall and do some more shopping for grown ups. She is taking off tomorrow just to shop and I was informed that she enjoys shopping more when I am not around.

I don’t mind but I know I will be carrying what she buys tomorrow.