Ho-ho-ho for the holidays

Holiday shopping is upon us again, and there's no better remedy than my Christmas novella, "Sanity Clause."

Bumbling private eye Bubba Mabry is hired to keep an eye on the Santas at an Albuquerque mall. This is harder than it sounds because Santa Claus has always given Bubba the creeps. Plus, he must suffer through mobs of greedy shoppers, shrieking children and Christmas Muzak.

When one of the mall Santas is killed, Bubba must solve the murder to salvage his shaky reputation.

"Sanity Clause" is one of Bubba's funniest adventures. I originally wrote it for an anthology of Christmas mysteries called "The Last Noel," but it's now available as an e-book for only 99 cents. How's that for an electronic stocking stuffer?

Work, work, work

Now that we're fully relocated in Albuquerque, it's time to catch up on the paying work. Lots to report:

I'm busy promoting the three novels published in the last few months -- CALABAMA, THE BIG WINK and LOST VEGAS. Those novels and FIREPOWER, which came out a year ago, are $2.99 each via Kindle and Smashwords. All my other crime novels, including the Bubba Mabry series, have been marked down to 99 cents each. More info here.

Debuting next week is a new online anthology called WEST COAST CRIME WAVE, which includes my short story "Surf City." More about that this weekend.

I've started sketching out a new Bubba Mabry novel (working title: PARTY DOLL. What do you think?), and will begin the first draft soon. Plus, I'm bouncing around some screenplay ideas with a Hollywood friend. Nothing we can talk about yet, but lots of potential.

Now that we have a functioning mailing address, I'm again accepting manuscripts for editing and polishing. Albuquerque is a much bigger market for the one-on-one coaching I prefer, but I also take in manuscripts from afar for $3 a page. For more info, e-mail me at abqbrewer@gmail.com.

Lots of other reading to do, too. I'm teaching "Hard-boiled Fiction and Film Noir" at the University of New Mexico in the spring, and I haven't taught that class in nearly a decade. Time for a refresher course. I'm looking forward to being in the classroom again.

All this, and getting reacquainted with our New Mexico pals, too. This autumn promises to be busy and rich.

Please judge this book by its cover

Check out the terrific cover art for my soon-to-be-released crime novel, THE BIG WINK.

THE BIG WINK is my look at the medical marijuana movement. Set on the fringes of the Emerald Triangle in Northern California, the novel features a gang of misfit armed robbers who are knocking over cannabis dispensaries. When a local banker is shot during one of the robberies, the law can't look the other way anymore. The cops turn up the heat.

THE BIG WINK is the third in a trio of standalone novels set in and around Redding, CA; the others are BANK JOB and the recent hit CALABAMA. I poke a lot of fun at the "Ozarks of California," but the community reaction to the medical marijuana boom in my novel reflects what's really been happening across the country.

As for that brilliant cover art, it's designed by my wife Kelly Brewer, who's done several of my e-book covers. I think this one is her best yet.

Expect to see THE BIG WINK on Kindle and Smashwords by the end of the week. Don't worry, I'll let you know as soon as it's available. ;-)

The empire grows

Parnell Hall may be King of the Kindle, but I'm well on my way to becoming Emperor of E-books with the release of five volumes of my goofy "Rules for Successful Living." Granted, each volume is only 100 "Rules" long (about seven pages' worth), but in the crazy new world of e-publishing, that's enough to qualify as a 99-cent "book."

I started "Rules for Successful Living" on Facebook as a gag. Seemingly obvious advice ("Don't fall on your mouth") offered in an earnest self-help tone. People responded to them, so I kept writing them. Pretty soon, it became a habit to post one or two (increasingly twisted) Rules a day. Do that for a year or two, and you end up with a whole bunch of ridiculous rules for living.

Five of my novels and my humor book Trophy Husband already are available as e-books, and they're selling pretty well, so I decided to offer the best of my "Rules for Successful Living" on Kindle, too. Click here to see all my Kindle books.

Amazon makes it easy to send Kindle books as gifts to anyone with an e-mail address. At 99 cents, "100 Rules for Successful Living" would make a nice electronic stocking stuffer.

Hey, that's less than a penny per Rule! Where else can you get so much bad advice so cheap?

New e-book available now!

"Baby Face," the second novel in my Bubba Mabry private eye series, is now available as an e-book from Kindle, Smashwords and other e-booksellers. Only $4.99.

In "Baby Face," Bubba is hired by a vicious pimp whose girls have turned up dead. Bubba's investigation uncovers connections to politicians, the Religious Right and a woman who's trying to unionize the local hookers.

Fun book. Give it a try!

Crowing from the (almost) empty nest

You know what I haven't been doing lately? Back-to-school shopping. Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha.

Our youngest started this week at Shasta College, but he didn't need any new school supplies or clothes. He had a pen, and he wore his usual hippie rags. We threw some money at him as he headed out the door, and that was about it. He stays at our house some nights, but that's temporary. He's pretty much on his own.

As most of you know, Kel and I are trying to take advantage of our emptier nest by selling our beautiful home in Redding, CA. (Price reduced to $400,000! For slide show, click here.) As soon as the house sells, we're moving to a place by the beach in Santa Cruz. Why? Here's why:

(I don't know the photographer, but he's got lots of awesome aerials at his website. Check it out.)

But enough gloating. For you poor souls who still have kids in school, check out the Home Front archives for a few laughs, including this column about back-to-school shopping. Enjoy!

Ho-ho-ho, Merry August

Back-to-school shopping always seems like a summertime taste of Christmas.

Such a haul. New clothes, new sneakers, new backpack, new lunchbox. Bright yellow pencils and crisp white paper.

For the kids, it's as if Santa came to visit in his vacation clothes. For the parents, though, it can be a nail-biting, heartburn-inducing exercise in breaking the bank.

Small kids demand that all clothes and school supplies come decorated with trademarked characters from Marvel or Mattel or Disney or Nintendo. No matter which character your child loves best, all the goods bearing that likeness sold out last February.

If parents try to inflict anything else -- plain T-shirts, for example, or a notebook decorated with Barney instead of Pikachu -- the children will roll on the floor and howl and kick their little feet.
It's easy to spot those kids' parents. They're the nomads wandering from store to store, weeping and clutching handfuls of their own hair.

If you're lucky enough to stumble upon a hoard of the correct goods, the sticker shock will make your eyes jump out of your head and roll around the floor. Ten bucks for a binder? Thirty bucks for little bitty jeans? Sixty dollars for sneakers?

Holy slide rule, Batman. Before you know it, you've racked up a credit card debt that won't be paid off until the little beggars are off to college.

And for what? Clothes the children will ruin or outgrow by winter break. School supplies that will be lost or destroyed. (Has any kid, anywhere, ever made it through the school year with an intact protractor?) A backpack that produces an odd, musty smell you can't eradicate. And, of course, after a month or two, the kids will decide Pokemon is passe (or so all the parents pray).

By the time Christmas does roll around, it's time to replace everything. And it's hard to fit a new NASCAR lunchbox in a stocking.

I'd like to say it gets easier as kids get older, but that would be lying. Fashions change, but the demands are much the same. Instead of screaming for a pink Barbie lunchbox, your daughter will insist on a pink Paris Hilton crop top. Your son will object to any pants that aren't large enough to house a family of six.

And the sneakers just keep getting pricier.

Some parents of teens simply hand over a credit card and lie down in a dimly lit room until it's over. Others participate in the shopping, but must budget for stress remedies such as bourbon.

There is hope. Eventually, the kids' growth slows, so they might wear a garment more than, say, twice. The household fills up with so many backpacks and lunchboxes and binders, a child might actually re-use one, assuming it doesn't smell too funky.

Our two teen-age sons show little interest in back-to-school shopping. The older one, who's in the seventh year of his ratty rock-and-roller phase, refuses to wear clothes unless they have more holes than a screen door. The younger one never throws anything out, so his closet is overflowing. They both own relatively new, stink-free backpacks.

So I left the boys at home when I did the back-to-school shopping. I returned with a sackful of composition books and pens and said, "Here you go. You're all set."

I know it's not over. Teachers will demand specialized goods. Backpacks will be lost. Tattered clothing will turn to dust.

But I'm hoping we can hold out until Christmas.

Food mortgages

Remember when a trip to the supermarket didn’t require a major investment?

Food prices have climbed so much recently that buying groceries should now come with a mountain of qualifying paperwork, like a second mortgage.

“Sorry, sir,” the cashier would say, “but it appears you don’t have the financial history to take on this much debt. You’d better put back the ice cream.”

Food prices are tied to energy prices -- shipping food to your supermarket requires diesel -- and we all know how that’s gone lately. Truckers are going broke, farmers are barely staying afloat, and the oil barons would be laughing all the way to the bank if weren’t for the strain of carrying all that money.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are standing in the supermarket aisles, trying to decide whether we can afford to invest in dessert.

Maybe this is the latest strategy for curing obesity -- make food so expensive that we Americans have to curtail our eating. Won’t work, of course, because the most fattening foods are the cheapest.

The government tells us we should eat healthy fish and lean meat and fresh fruit and vegetables, then the prices on those items go through the roof. Pretty soon, all we can afford is hyphenated food like mac-and-cheese and Rice-a-Roni and Chef Boy-Ar-Dee. Every day, we get a little fatter and a little poorer.

It starts to feel like it would be cheaper to eat dollar-menu fast food all the time -- at least you wouldn’t have to heat up the kitchen -- but who can afford enough gasoline to sit in a drive-thru line? And, if you eat burgers all the time, it eventually will cause your spleen to explode.

I’d been somewhat insulated from the latest surge of food price inflation because I hadn’t been doing the grocery shopping. For years, my wife was the breadwinner, and I did the actual shopping for bread. But once she joined me in working at home, she took over the hunting and gathering.

My wife’s a more canny shopper than I am. She’ll go to three different discount grocery stores to get the best deals and come home with loads of food for less money than I might spend on, say, beer.

Bargain-shopping makes for strange combinations sometimes and some unfamiliar labels in the pantry, but she knows how to whip these items into delicious meals that might not even involve the microwave, so it turns out fine.

Recently, though, she was busy and I went to the store. I did it my usual way -- no coupons, no comparison shopping, same supermarket I always use because I know where everything is.
Holy mackerel! No, wait, mackerel’s too expensive. Let’s say: Holy ramen noodles! I couldn’t believe how much prices have soared.

I started paying attention to prices, hunting the cheapest brands, putting stuff back, and I still spent $200 on a not-quite-full cart of groceries. At the checkout stand, I swiped the “club card” that entitles me to special prices, then played Bob Barker -- “Come on down!” -- while I watched the total on the register readout diminish only slightly.

I sheepishly brought the groceries home. Our two teen-aged sons had it all eaten within, oh, three days. Then they wanted to know why we were out of ice cream.

“Because,” I told them, “I’m waiting for the paperwork to clear on the home-equity loan.”

Primp my bride

A comic cliché that goes back at least to the early days of Dagwood and Blondie: The husband pacing impatiently while his wife takes her good sweet time getting ready for a night on the town.

As with so many clichés, this one’s got some basis in fact. Women have much more to do to get ready, which means men end up with more time to watch the clock and get ulcers.

Proof comes from Great Britain, where a survey finds that women spend three times longer getting ready for a night out. On average, the study found, women spend an hour and a half preparing for a night out, including taking a shower, doing their hair, applying makeup and polishing nails.

Over a lifetime, this adds up to 3,276 hours (or 136 DAYS) spent on primping and preening.

“The figures come as no surprise considering the pressure that today’s women are under just to make themselves look good,” said Heather Boden of the body wash brand Skinbliss, which commissioned the research.

Women are bombarded with images from advertising and media, telling them what constitutes beauty and what products they must buy right now to reach that pinnacle. They’re made to feel that they must invest time and effort into looking their best.

Men, on the other hand, assume they look fine, even when they are covered in actual soil.

If you don’t believe this double-standard exists, try this experiment. Put any woman in front of a large mirror in a well-lit room. She immediately will examine her reflection for flaws. She will get depressed over every bump and wrinkle. She will sigh. She will decide her clothes are hopelessly out of fashion. She will decide to go shopping.

Put a man in front of the same mirror, and he’ll start flexing his biceps, saying to himself, “Looking good.” This is true whether the man is a fit young Adonis or a middle-aged bald guy with the physique of a toad.

(The British survey didn’t differentiate between single vs. married, but I’m guessing the answers were quite different. People who are “on the market” invest more time in looking and smelling their best, just in case they meet that special someone, whereas a married person can feel fully primped as long as he or she is not wearing fresh baby spit-up.)

A typical man can get ready for any occasion in the length of time it takes a woman to decide “does this purse go with these shoes?” Then the man is forced to sit around in his uncomfortable dress-up clothes, getting increasingly anxious, while the woman does her hair and her makeup and changes outfits seven times. By the time she is finally ready, the man has rumpled his clothes, consumed too many pre-party drinks and is fast asleep in front of the TV. He then must spring awake and tuck in his shirttail and smooth down the dagwoods in his hair and drive like a bat out of hell so they can reach the special occasion before all the food is gone.

Plus, the reeling, half-awake man must remember to tell the woman how beautiful she looks. If he knows what’s good for him.

Otherwise, he may find himself asking: Does this purse look good upside my head?

Cutting costs

INTERNAL MEMO
To: Members of the Household
From: Chief Financial Officer

Nationwide, the economy’s in real trouble, and that’s reflected here at local headquarters. Costs are rising and income isn’t keeping up. High gasoline and food prices have taken their toll, and inflation is now spreading to other areas, such as tires and waistlines. It’s time to tighten our collective belts so we can survive these hard times without resorting to layoffs that could affect the whole family.

The following cost-cutting measures will be in force until further notice:

1) Out-of-control inflation at the supermarket means we must rely on simpler foods, such as those purchased at discount stores for less than a dollar. Think ramen noodles. Yum.

We’ll be looking for foods we can make from scratch. Yes, this is more time-consuming, but we’ll have plenty of time to cook now that we’ve canceled all fun activities. (See item 5).

We’ll also keep a lower inventory of food on hand. If you get hungry enough, maybe you’ll finally consume those canned goods that have sat in the back of the pantry since 1993.

2) Utility costs are on the rise, and we can all do our part by keeping lights turned off and using less air-conditioning. Sweating is good for you. And reading in low light builds up your eye muscles.

3) We’ll cut spending on extravagances such as new school clothes. You kids only want to wear your old, ratty clothes anyway, and now you’ll get that opportunity. If colors are faded or you’re tired of the patterns, we’ll dye all your clothes black and tell everyone you’re “Goth” or "emo.” You’ll have to act angry and/or sad all the time, but that shouldn’t be difficult now that we’re poor.

4) School supplies will be provided by household members who have access to corporate office-supply closets and who can exercise the venerated “five-finger discount.” Students should pay special attention to the combinations of nearby lockers.

5) Entertainment costs must be contained. Why pay full price for “The Dark Knight” when you can watch perfectly fine old movies such as “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken” on TV for free? Better yet, curl up with a book from the library.

Dining out is verboten, effective immediately. Public liquor consumption should be confined to “happy hour.” Private alcohol consumption may increase during these hard economic times, resulting in deferred costs, such as detox and/or rehab.

6) Houseplants cost water and time and provide little in return. The ingrates. Starting now, houseplants will gradually be replaced by herbs and other edible plants, such as wheat.

7) Lawn and garbage services will be suspended, replaced by the newest member of our household team, Sweetums the goat. I hope you all will join me in welcoming Sweetums aboard, but keep your distance because she bites.

8) Other so-called “pets” are put on notice that they need to start pulling their weight around here. Otherwise, they run the risk of becoming “lunch.”

9) Transportation costs simply must come down. Car trips will be restricted to those that are absolutely necessary. Household members who need additional travel should undertake it at their own expense. Or use alternative methods such as hitchhiking. This is why God gave you thumbs, people.

That is all for now. If the recession deepens, additional cutbacks may be required. But if we all pitch in and help contain costs, perhaps we won’t have to sell the children to a passing carnival.

Thank you.

Wackos on parade

Do you ever feel you’ve walked into an episode of “The Twilight Zone?” So much weirdness surrounds you that it couldn’t possibly be real?

We who work at home probably get this sensation more than others. We don’t get out much, so we’re less inured to other people’s strange behavior.

The other day, I stopped by a drugstore to shop for sunglasses. When I say “drugstore,” I mean a modern-style drugstore, which is really a department store with a pharmacy in the back. Along with the usual ointments and remedies, my neighborhood drugstore has cosmetics, school supplies, housewares, groceries, a liquor department (my personal favorite), small appliances, DVDs, batteries and a sporting goods aisle, complete with fishing gear.

But that’s not the weird part.

The weirdness came from the customers. While I stooped to a tiny mirror to see how I looked in various sunglasses with large, dangling price tags, I heard so many strange things, I could only assume I’d barged into a “Twilight Zone” set. I kept looking around for Rod Serling.

First came Warren and his mom. Warren was a standard-issue small boy, full of energy and questions and noise. But Warren’s mom was another story. She had the loudest voice I’ve ever heard from a person who wasn’t actively rooting for a sports team.

“Warren! Come over here! Warren! Watch where you’re going! No, Warren, you can’t have that! Warren! Look at this! Warren!”

You could hear her all over the store. She didn’t seem angry or particularly frustrated. Just oh-my-Lord loud. She either had no idea that her voice carries so well, or she was one of those daffy look-at-me types who wanted us all to share in her shopping adventure with Warren.

I’m sure I wasn’t the only customer to wonder about Warren’s future sessions on a psychiatrist’s couch.

Once they left, more yelling distracted me. A middle-aged couple started arguing over a certain product and whether it was cheaper elsewhere. This seemed a minor point to me, but it was enough to set off this happy couple. They screamed and growled and spat like a couple of angry alley cats. The argument went on for several minutes.

I’m sure all married couples have moments of disagreement. Many even get loud. But in public? In a store? Over prices?

Clearly, this was a troubled couple. I could only hope they didn’t have any little maladjusted Warrens at home.

Then a lady walked past me, talking to herself. OK, I know people talk to themselves. I do it all the time at home. But I rarely ask myself questions, then provide the answers. In public.

“Do we need some bread?” this lady muttered. “Yes, I think we do. There’s some bread over there. Hmm. Is this the brand I like? No, it is not. But I guess it’ll do. Now we need some coffee.”

As she wandered off, I thought: Wouldn’t it be easier to make a list?

The sudden lack of distracting conversation allowed me to notice the Muzak, which was playing a song that I hate, hate, hate. The music stopped when an employee came over the speaker to make an announcement. My relief lasted only a moment because, two rows over, a customer took up the tune, loudly whistling. He whistled all the way to the end of the song, including a guitar solo.

That’s when I gave up on buying sunglasses. Better to escape this “Twilight Zone,” even if it meant I’d go around squinting like Rod Serling.

I can always pick up some sunglasses the next time I buy fishing gear.

Pillage people

Here’s the leading cause of obesity in America: Grocery Day.

All across this great country, we citizens waddle into gigantic supermarkets once a week and spend way more than we should on way more groceries than we should buy. We cart these goods home, then immediately pig out on them, sampling all the richest, sweetest, highest-calorie foods.

We’re bloated after this unofficial feast day. About the time we recover, the cupboards are bare because the kids and their friends have eaten everything, and we do it all over again.

Once upon a time, when people still walked places, they picked up only a few groceries at a time from corner markets. Enough for tonight’s meal, tomorrow’s breakfast. They ate less and they walked more and, guess what, fewer of them were fat.

Before widespread refrigeration and international food transport, shoppers were limited to what was available from surrounding farms, to what was in season. Not a lot of choice, but people also didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about whether their tofu or their mango should be kept in the fridge.

As SUVs and suburbs and side-by-side Frigidaires took over the landscape, people started treated Grocery Day less like a safari and more like a stockpiling raid. No longer hunter-gatherers, we became swooping hordes of shoppers, repeatedly pillaging the small village of Safeway, amassing so much loot we need large wheeled carts to haul it all away.

At least that’s the way I like to think of it, when I’m picking over the artichokes with the snowbirds on a Thursday afternoon. I lead a rich fantasy life.

Because we have two strapping teen-aged boys at our house, I buy lots of groceries every week, so many I barely can fit them all into one cart. The groceries fill the cargo hold and back seat of my Ford Lemonstar minivan.

When I get home, my sons help me haul the booty into the house, oohing and aahing over the Oreos and Cocoa Puffs they find in the bags. We work as team, putting away the groceries, then we launch into an individual competition to see who can eat the most the fastest.

It’s not intentional. But all that sudden variety is irresistible. Even if we try to avoid a pig-out, there are usually some treats lying about, simply because there’s not enough cabinet/fridge space to store everything, and it’s hard not to graze.

If there are teen-agers around, the snacks and sweets are the first things to go. So if we parents want a crack at an Oreo ourselves, we’d better pounce on Grocery Day. After that, good luck.

Of course, we can’t eat all the groceries in one day, no matter how we try. Not a whole minivan load of them. So the second day, we’re hard at it again, trying to consume all the grapes before they go bad and the last few marshmallows before someone else eats them. By bedtime, we can barely walk.

Consumption tapers off as the week wears on and choices diminish. Everything that’s left is either good for you or requires preparation more elaborate than a zap in the microwave. We survive on frozen food and random sandwiches.

The boys wander away in search of sweets and fast food pilfered from friends. Mom and Dad find themselves nibbling plain saltines in front of the TV because that’s all that’s available.

Time to go pillaging again. It’s Grocery Day.

Shoe love

Sometimes, in the vast Sidewalk Sale of our lives as consumers, we hit upon exactly the right purchase. Just what we needed. The ideal fit. The handiest little gizmo. Don't know how we ever got along without one.

These products enrich our lives, each one a bright spot in the gloomy accumulation of items that disappoint or break or never fit quite right.

Often, these perfect products come from the clothing aisles. People get downright fetishistic about certain garments or shoes. (Like one woman, who found the ideal high heel, then went out and bought two more pairs of the exact same shoe because the model had been discontinued, not that I'm naming any names.)

Even fashion-free guys -- slobs who always look like they just rolled out of bed, on fire -- have favorite T-shirts or old sneakers they can't bear to throw away.

My latest favorite is a simple black shoe, plain to the point of invisibility. It's the perfect shoe for me, and I'm delighted that I stumbled onto it, so to speak.

Oh, I've had favorites before. Sneakers, mostly, the occasional boat shoe. Casual, you know? Maybe a dressy loafer for a night on the town. But I never fell in love. Kept my shoes at a distance. Easy come, easy go.

I told myself I didn't even care about shoes anymore. My middle-aged feet are wide at the front and narrow at the heel, like the feet of a large duck. Nothing fits right. I'd quit looking. Wear the ones that pinch, what's a little more suffering?

Then I met this shoe. The new pair that's got me all aflutter. Comfortable as sneakers, but I can wear 'em with anything. Take 'em anywhere, walk for miles in perfect comfort. Every time I wear these shoes, I'm the happiest guy on two feet.

We're not talking simple brand loyalty here. It's true love. Shoe love. I'd run into a burning building to rescue these shoes.

And they were on sale when I bought them.

No, I won't identify the brand. For one thing, they wouldn't work for you, unless you also have duck feet. For another, I'm not in the business of endorsing products. Unless a shoe company wants to pay me millions for the endorsement, like they do pro athletes. I could be bought. They could even put my likeness on the shoes, like they do with the Air Jordan logo, that great flying-dunk silhouette. What would be a good logo for a writer? Guy hunkered over a keyboard. Cursing.

Anyway, the brand doesn't matter. I'm talking about the way the perfect fit makes you feel.

Some product out there -- a socket wrench, a kitchen implement, a sports car, pants -- makes you, too, happy to be alive. Cherish this favorite. Always keep it in the same place. Don't lend it to others. Don't let anything happen to it. Who knows when you'd be able to find a replacement? They probably don't even make those anymore. In fact, you'd better go buy a couple more, while you're thinking about it. Put 'em away someplace safe. Just in case.

If you can't think of something that makes you feel this good, some brand that's earned your lifelong devotion, then I only hope that one day you find this level of happiness and contentment for yourself. Don't give up. Get out there and shop.

I'd recommend the shoe department.

A day-after-Christmas gift

Congratulations! If you're reading this, you've survived another Christmas. Now let's see if you can endure the aftermath.

The days between Christmas and New Year's Eve are the doldrums of winter. Kids are home from school, but it's usually too cold to banish them to the outdoors. Many grown-ups are off work, loitering around the house, eating too much and watching mindless TV and having our bare feet punctured by fallen Tannenbaum needles.

We're all cooped up together, and the whole family settles into a disappointed funk.

We build up Christmas so much in this country -- starting around Halloween each year -- there's no way the holiday can live up to the hype:

--We didn't get the gifts we secretly wanted most, or the gifts weren't as cool as we thought they'd be.

--Holiday gatherings weren't the Norman-Rockwell-winter-wonderland-sleighbells-ringing scenarios we'd hoped, particularly since Uncle Floyd doesn't know how to behave when he's had a few.

--The children haven't shown near enough appreciation for the tooth-and-nail battles we parents fought to get the sold-out toy they really, really wanted.

By now, at least of one of those expensive Christmas toys has broken, resulting in tears and recriminations and false promises. The batteries in all the other toys have died, and parents everywhere are hurrying to convenience stores to pay three prices for new ones. It's all part of Santa's diabolical plan. Right now, he's on a beach somewhere, maniacally laughing his jingle bells
off.

The house is a wreck, and sighing parents know we'll be plucking stray tinsel out of the carpet for months to come. All those cheerful lights and decorations must be taken down and packed up and put away before they're destroyed. We might've hung our stockings by the chimney with care, but right now one of the kids has them on his feet, using them to stomp the Christmas ornaments to smithereens. We've got dried-out dead trees in our living rooms, just waiting for a passing spark. Gift-wrap paper is strewn through every room, and the dog's discovered that it tastes good. Pretty soon, he'll yark up a colorful display of glitter and gilt.

(Speaking of gift wrap, answer me this: How come some people spend hundreds, even thousands, of dollars on extravagant Christmas presents, then suddenly become penny-pinchers when it comes to saving wrapping paper and bows "for next year?" You know who you are. Explain yourselves.)

Why do some food items that are special yummy treats at Christmas -- I'm thinking here of egg nog and fruitcake -- suddenly seem disgusting once the holiday has passed? Even the dog won't touch them.

If you've managed to avoid an actual hangover by steering clear of the egg nog, you're still facing the financial hangover that follows each Christmas season. Don't believe me? Wait until you see January's credit-card bills.

The post-holiday doldrums do have an "up" side. Now that Christmas is over, life eventually will get back to normal. You won't have to go to the mall unless you actually NEED something (or to exchange your disappointing gifts). Your Duracell stock holdings just went up. And, pretty soon, that Christmas Muzak will stop going round and round in your head.

So try to enjoy the next few days. Watch some football rather than another rerun of "It's a Wonderful Life." Throw out the leftovers in favor of regular food. Whatever you do, avoid weighing yourself. Tell the kids the Grinch has stolen all the batteries from every store in town. Host a festive tree-burning out in the yard.

You should take this time to relax. Remember: Only 364 shopping days left until next Christmas.

(Editor's note: This little scrooge of a column appeared a few years ago. This year's Dec. 26 is much more mellow. It helps to spend a few days at the beach right before Christmas.)

Furniture shopping tips

Move every few years, and you regularly face the need to adapt existing furniture to new spaces. You end up with strange combinations, or matching pieces in different rooms, or stuff stacked in the garage, awaiting use in future homes.

This migratory pattern has given rise to a popular home-furnishing style known as "eclectic." Eclectic (from the French for "mismatched bookshelves") means furniture purchased for previous houses, rearranged to fit current needs.

Furnishings put our personal history on display, and "eclectic" style lets us show just how haphazard our lives have been. This is how you end up with a hula-girl lamp on top of an antique commode, next to a waterbed, all sitting on a colorful rug apparently purchased that drunken night on the Mexican border. You accumulate such items over time. Like tattoos.

Eventually, you land someplace where you'll stay awhile and your thoughts turn to new furniture, maybe some that matches, maybe some that doesn't wobble or have big butt-dents in the cushions.

(The previous paragraph does not apply if you are a "guy." Guys don't care about butt-dents. Guys have two thoughts about furniture: 1) Is it arranged so that I can get to bed in the dark, drunk, without falling over something and breaking an elbow? And 2) Is my chair lined up directly in front of the TV?)

The problem with furniture shopping, as with most shopping, is sifting through too many choices. Too many weird products and funny brand names and unfamiliar terms like "eclectic."

We're here to help. Clip the following Furniture Glossary and take it with you when you hit the stores.

Furniture Styles and What They Mean:

Early American -- Spindly.

Primitive -- Splintery.

Santa Fe style -- Primitive, but brightly painted.

Country style -- Primitive, with gingham touches.

Mission style -- Nothing to do with the missionary position, so stop smirking. Square, wooden, uncomfortable.

Colonial -- Uncomfortable furniture designed by people who had the fashion sense to wear large buckles on their hats.

Contemporary -- Uncomfortable.

Modern -- Uncomfortable, with sharp edges.

Art Deco -- Uncomfortable, but shiny.

Shaker -- Uncomfortable, but in a penitential way.

Adirondack -- Uncomfortable, made of planks.

Mediterranean -- Wrought-iron.

Scandinavian -- Blond.

French Provincial -- Furniture with fancy epaulets.

Bombe -- Furniture with goiters.

Chippendale -- Elaborate furniture designed by male strippers.

Other Handy Terms:

Overstuffed -- Designed for fat people.

"Pottery Barn" style -- Designed for skinny people who live in apartments.

"Pier One" style -- Designed for Margaritaville.

Retro -- Old.

Antique -- Really old.

Rustic -- Really old and badly constructed.

Refurbished -- Old and broken.

Floor model -- New and broken.

Distressed -- Broken on purpose.

Ready-to-Assemble -- So broken that it comes as a box of loose parts, some of which are missing.

Now that you know the terms, you're all set to go shopping! Furnish your house exactly the way you want!

Just in time to move again.

Last-minute shopping tips

With two weeks to go until Christmas, many of us are mired in the traditional holiday panic about what gifts to buy for our loved ones.

We wander shopping malls, examining merchandise and muttering and shaking our heads. Nothing seems to fit with our loved ones' wants and needs. Or, we find the perfect gift, but it's too expensive. Or, it's the wrong size or color or voltage.

With each passing day, the joyful deadline presses closer, until the last few shopping days arrive and we desperately grab up anything and wrap it in brightly colored paper and hope for the best. This is how bald Uncle Fred ends up with hair curlers on Christmas morning and Grandma gets a new monkey wrench.

Why does this happen, year after year? Because our loved ones already have all the stuff they need. In our credit-driven society, deferred gratification is a forgotten value. If we want something, we run right out and buy it. And everyone else we know acts the same way.

The result? If you think of an item that would make the perfect gift for your loved one, it will turn out that the loved one already has one. Each year, we're forced to go farther afield in search of gifts they might possibly need, but don't already own. And this, my friends, is how the Salad Shooter came to be born.

The solution to this perennial problem is to "think outside the (gift) box." Your family doesn't need more stuff. What your loved ones will appreciate most are gifts that show you've given some consideration to their lifestyles and their happiness.

Gifts you've made with you own hands demonstrate your love and thoughtfulness, though people will whisper later that you are a tightwad. Gag gifts show whimsy, but you'd better hope your loved ones share your sense of humor. Money or gift certificates let the recipients decide for themselves what useless crap will clutter up their homes.

Here are some other creative gift suggestions:

FOR CHILDREN

Christmas really is for kids, and nothing ruins the holiday faster than the crestfallen look of a child who opens an inappropriate gift and declares that Santa is an idiot.

When buying toys, you should consider durability as well as the latest hot trends. Ideally, you want toys that will not be destroyed before the credit-card bills come due. Also, avoid toys that need batteries unless you're prepared to buy new batteries every week for the rest of your life, which explains the origin of the phrase "a gift that keeps on giving."

You can be forward-looking with kids' gifts -- giving money to their college funds or donating to a good cause in their names. But be warned: The children will hate you forever.

Whatever you opt to buy for a child, make sure it comes in a large cardboard box. That's the only thing the kid will play with, anyway.

FOR SPOUSES

This is difficult because Christmas gifts for spouses require a knowledge of what your spouse needs, plus a touch of romance. No spouse really wants new pots and pans for Christmas. His-and-her TV remotes will not be considered romantic. Major appliances are out, too, unless your spouse enjoys playing in large cardboard boxes.

FOR SENIOR CITIZENS

These folks are particularly hard to buy for because they've had entire lifetimes to accumulate stuff. Food items work, as long as you're cognizant of the recipients' special dietary needs. But the best thing you can do for a senior citizen these days is help them pay for their prescription drugs. Or get them a nice big cardboard box as a "retirement home."

FARAWAY RELATIVES

Tricky, because you can end up paying more in postage than the gift items are worth. The best way to handle distant loved ones is to perfect this phrase: "Darn, it must've gotten lost in the mail."

If Dec. 24 arrives and you still haven't finished your shopping, go to a store and buy dozens of the same item and give one to each person on your Christmas list. We recommend the monkey wrench as the perfect universal gift. If you don't believe us, go ask Grandma.

The perfect gift for your wife

The holiday gift-buying season has arrived, which means that, across this great country of ours, malls are filled with men who are wailing and gnashing their teeth.

Why? Because the only thing that most guys hate more than shopping is shopping for somebody else.

When it comes to gifts, most men are morons. No matter how well we know the recipients, we aren't sure what they'll like. We don't know if they have the item already. We don't know sizes. We don't know how stores are arranged or how to ask for assistance or how much to spend.

(Yes, these are generalizations. I'm sure there are men who enjoy shopping. I'm sure there are men who love nothing more than to select gifts for their loved ones. I don't know any of these men. And I'd better not meet any, if they know what's good for them.)

At our house, my wife does nearly all the gift shopping. She loves to shop, particularly on-line, and she always knows exactly what will make people happy. When it comes to the household division of labor, we believe in playing to our strengths: My wife is in charge of gifts and paying bills; I do laundry and scrub stuff. She doesn't wreck her manicure scouring grout, and I don't buy gifts that make people burst into tears.

However, like most men in this enviable situation, I must buy at least one gift -- my wife's. This is dangerous ground, as so many men know. The gifts we buy our spouses are the most important ones, with the biggest potential for future residence in the doghouse.

Based on my 20-plus years of experience, I offer you men out there these helpful hints:

--Listen. Your wife will tip you off, sometime in these last weeks before Christmas, about what she really wants. There'll be a passing reference to some product, a corner turned down on a catalog page, a gush over something another woman owns. As soon as you register this desire, race into another room and write it down. Otherwise, you'll later find yourself in the mall, wandering aimlessly because you can't remember what she said.

--Do some research. If you're buying, say, perfume, go look at her perfume collection and see which one is her favorite. It's the one that's emptiest, stupid.

--Forget gift certificates. They're gifts that say, "I haven't got a clue."

--Avoid clothing. If you get the wrong size, you're an idiot. If you get her something that’s too small, she'll feel fat. If you get something that's way too big, she'll think YOU think she's fat. If you must buy clothing, then go for one-size-fits-all. A scarf. Maybe some socks.

--Jewelry is always good. But only "real" jewelry. Buy the cheap stuff, and you'll never hear the end of it.

--Small appliances hold no romance. You should never buy your sweetie a vacuum cleaner unless she specifically requests it. Even then, you'd better sweeten the deal with chocolate or some other gift (see Jewelry).

--Pay an outrageous amount to have the gift professionally wrapped. Just as most men are missing the shopping gene, we also are genetically incapable of wrapping a present properly. Most gifts I wrap look like they were done by a drunken chimp. A nice shiny package with trim corners and a proper bow says, "I care enough to stand in the gift-wrap line."

Remember, men: All your wife wants for Christmas is the perfect gift, one that shows exquisite taste and a deep, loving knowledge of her innermost desires. It should be a perfect fit, perfectly wrapped, and a big surprise.

Happy holidays!

Authors Fair on Saturday

Attention readers in Redding, CA: I'm selling books this Saturday at the Writers Forum Authors Fair at the Mt. Shasta Mall, and I hope to see many of you there.

The event, which runs from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m., features a number of Northern California authors who will give talks and answer questions at tables around the mall's center court. I'm bringing a ton of my books, including some that aren't readily available elsewhere, and they'll be priced below retail.

Signed books make nice Christmas gifts, and I'll be happy to print holiday greetings with my usual illegible signature.

Y'all come!

Bargain buys = big bucks

I went to the supermarket for a gallon of milk and spent $90.

How does this happen? Why does every trip to the market result in huge expenditures of money and time?

Here's how it went that day: I announced to my family that I was headed to the store for milk. I asked (and here was my first mistake) whether anybody needed anything while I was there.

Everyone shouted at once. They needed ice cream. They needed toiletries. We were out of the favorite brand of sugary cereal. We had syrup, but no waffles. Mom needed items (olive oil!) that Dad never remembers.

It was too much too fast. I had to make a list. But I sternly kept it short. This wasn't the weekly shopping trip that always results in an overflowing shopping cart and exultant cheers from the checkout clerks. No, this was a quickie store run. Just milk. And a few other items. But mostly milk.

One look at the list told me I'd need a shopping cart (my second mistake). Soon I was rolling up and down the aisles, searching for the items on the list.

Which is exactly what the supermarkets want us to do. Go up and down each aisle. Take our time. Browse. See something omitted from the list. Spot a special on strawberries. Discover that a favorite brand of coffee is on sale.

Pretty soon, my cart was full. Not piled-up full, not so full that I'm leaving a trail of dropped Pop-Tarts in my wake. But pretty danged full. Ninety dollars full.

All because we were running out of milk.

What is it about supermarkets that cause this behavior? The impulse buys. The stockpiling. Something about all that brightly packaged bounty prompts us to spend, spend, spend.

We wouldn’t do other shopping this way. For instance, you wouldn't go out shopping for a new car and bring home a yacht and a Sherman tank. (Picture telling your spouse: "Sure, hon, we don't really need a tank, but they never spoil, and they were on sale.")

When it comes to food, we feel entitled to stock up, particularly if there are teens in the household. It'll all get eaten eventually, we tell ourselves, and you can never have too much microwave popcorn at hand.

This stockpiling mentality is the fuel behind the success of giant warehouse stores like Costco. Buy in bulk, this philosophy goes, and save money. Sure, you've got enough toilet paper to last until 2037, but what the heck, it's on sale.

I refuse to shop at Costco and its imitators. My feeling is: You should never go impulse shopping in a place where there are forklifts. If you find yourself buying a "bargain" that's so large it won't fit in a standard shopping cart, then you should reconsider.

Who's got that kind of storage space? Every Costco shopper I know has stuff stacked to the rafters in their homes. Yes, you can save money by buying 200 rolls of paper towels at once, but if you have to rent a warehouse to hold them, you've reached the point of diminishing returns.

To buy nothing more than a gallon of milk, it might be safest to the take the opposite route -- go to a convenience store. Run in, run out, avoid the temptations of the supermarket.

But have you seen how much they're charging for milk at convenience stores? (Not $90, but too much.) And there's still the problem of impulse buys.

How much beef jerky does one family need?

Catalog jam

Is there an actual "Pottery Barn" somewhere?

Is a barn the proper place to store pottery? Isn't keeping your pottery in a barn sort of like keeping your bull in a china shop?

Such questions have been on my mind, thanks to a chance encounter in San Francisco. My family was in a restaurant, my wife and I sneaking glances at the next table, where a group of young urban trendies seemed to be having a much better time than we were. They made us feel old and frumpy.

My wife turned to me and said, with a sniff, "Pottery Barn people."

She was exactly right, as usual. These were the people you imagine when you thumb through the Pottery Barn catalog of home furnishings. Young and fit, hip and stylish, they live in apartments with great views and espresso machines. They looked like guest stars on "Friends."

It started me wondering: Is this the newest way to sort us all into tribes? Can we be categorized by which slick mail-order catalogs litter our homes?

If there are Pottery Barn people, are there also Crate & Barrel people? And are they really well-organized?

We've already got a name for Williams-Sonoma people -- foodies. Only a "foodie" can tell you why it's imperative to have the proper stainless-steel whisk in your kitchen.

What about Harry & David people? What would you call them? "Fruities?" Wouldn't they object?

The more I thought about it, the more the catalogs seemed worthy of sociological study. I went through some of the approximately 17 trillion catalogs that come to our house each year, trying to find patterns and social demarcations.

Who are the marketers targeting? Do the customers already exist, ready to have labels applied to them, or do they somehow shape their lifestyles to fit the world depicted in their favorite catalogs? Has it become a matter of "you are what you buy?"

For instance, there's a catalog called Anthropologie, which features European-looking accessories and clothing. I asked my wife about the target audience, and she said, "Rich women who think they're French." Ah, oui.

Many of the women's catalogs try to evoke a sense of place: Coldwater Creek, Sundance, Maryland Square. Others sound like old-fashioned department stores: Talbots, Chadwick's, Spiegel, Nordstrom. Women apparently can recognize each other from such clothes. They see another woman and go, "Aha, a member of the Talbots tribe."

Then there are all the casual clothes catalogs, broken down by target markets:

L.L. Bean: Rugged outdoorsmen who hike.
Orvis: Rugged outdoorsmen who fish.
Land's End: Rugged outdoorsmen who live near a beach.
TravelSmith: Rugged outdoorsmen who spend too much time in airports.
Eddie Bauer: Rugged outdoorsmen who drive SUVs.
Nautica: Rugged outdoorsmen who own yachts.
J. Crew: Outdoorspersons who are too young and cool to be rugged.

Some catalogs are full of gadgets and gizmos. Brookstone and The Sharper Image have all kinds of electronic whizbangs you didn't even know you needed, ultimately designed to relieve you of your disposable income.

Bed, Bath & Beyond seems self-explanatory, though that "beyond" part worries me. Frontgate, Lillian Vernon and dozens of others appeal to homeowners who value the perfect decorative welcome mat.

Levenger is for fountain-pen fetishists. Abercrombie & Fitch apparently caters to nudists. Victoria's Secret is for anorexics and 14-year-old boys.

But where is my own tribe among all these slick catalogs? What company targets overweight, aging, non-rugged INdoorsmen whose most strenuous activity is reading? Is there a catalog called Olde & Frumpy? Nearsighted & Dumpy? Gerontologie? J. Whew?

I'll be watching the mail.