No more shopping. No, no more! Please! Nooo

It's hard to stand in the mall with what feels like millions of people and try to think of that special gift to buy someone.

It's hard to think of anything but that one special gift when you remember you got them the exact same Perfect Gift last year.

It's hard to keep from losing your patience when a punk-rock Christmas carol is being piped through the crowded store, sung by someone who clearly isn't old enough to feel the rage with which he sings.

It's hard to find Bengals paraphernalia in a place where Packers isn't a team, it's a way of life.

It's hard to be original and buy someone something other than a gift card when they fit so nicely inside a suitcase, and come with the guarantee that you haven't gotten them a gift they already had.

It's hard to concentrate when you can tell by the sweat on your forehead that you should've left your winter coat in the car.

It's hard to buy a gift for someone when you know you only have an hour left to buy it, and your wife is hungry and standing there yawning with her hands in her coat pocket, pretend-smiling when you ask her for the 46th time "How about this?"

For that, I feel bad for Dave, my ever-procrastinating husband.

I do believe he'd buy all his gifts in the 30-minute drive from my dad's house to his parents' if I let him. But because I am the ever-anxious person I don't let that happen.

And because I've had it with moms yelling at kids in stores, carts being run into my heels by strangers who don't apologize, and most of all because we're now broke, I declare us done with shopping. Please, don't make me go back to the mall, where I have to park across the street and walk a mile to get the chance to be one of the thousands to squeeze through the overcrowded food court to the overcrowded stores.

Please, I beg you.