One Tennessee anti-shopper shares a bit about his pursuit of ‘Yule’ (whatever that is), Christmas cheer and the perfect gift for the ‘missus’. Shopping for hedge trimmers is a no brainer & takes a few minutes flat - shopping for the fairer sex involves excursions to uncharted territories, a task the writer seems to have bested in the name of love and with the help of a healthy sense of humor.

By MIKE PIRTLE
I’m not much of a shopper.

I don’t like shopping for the most part, except Bink’s, and am old enough I generally have everything I need and a whole lot of stuff I don’t need.

This time of the year though I have to do some shopping whether I like it or not.

Now, buying the son-in-law a new shrub trimmer is no big deal. I know what I want and where it is.

Shopping for the missus for Christmas I hate because if she doesn’t want jewelry I have to enter shopping areas where I have no knowledge or understanding.

Often my twentysomething daughter, who shops often with her mom, can put me right on whatever I need to buy.

This year the daughter couldn’t deliver so I had to do my own hunting and gathering in the malls and stores.

I especially hate shopping for women’s clothing because women have too many articles of clothing and I can’t understand their sizes. If it’s a petite, it’s one size, if not another. This designer is always one size bigger or one size smaller.

Aaaaaargh.

What has really annoyed me this holiday shopping season is trying to figure out the zillion different credit card machines in stores.

Since the vast majority of us use credit or debit cards now, why are the credit card companies or stores not trying to make it easier on us?

Seems like every store I go into has a different machine from the one I was just in.

Some you swipe your card on the right, some the left, some the top, some the bottom. Some you stick your card in and pull out. Some machines suck your card all the way in, leaving me, and probably others, a little apprehensive about its return.

Some machines you have to hit a credit or debit button, although the clerk then inevitably asks “Credit or debit?”

Some you have to push a “yes” or “no” button. Some you have to hit approve.

I especially hate the ones where you sign your name with a rubber stylus on a digitalized screen.
Your signature looks like you have an infirmity or have been drinking heavily. How do they possible verify that signature against your normal one?

Look, stores want us to use cards. It’s easier and better for them and us.

It’s the future. You regularly see young adults using plastic to pay for a drink and a snack.

It’s time those providing us goods and services come up with one card machine so we are aggravated by having to figure out which buttons to push this time.
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The missus and I were driving somewhere the other night and the question arose as to what is “Yule.”
We knew it had something to do with Christmas and had heard it referenced either as “Yule time” or “Yule log.”

But, what the heck is Yule?

The ever-knowing Google revealed the word springs from Scandinavian Germanic languages and has to do with celebrations of the winter solstice.

The Yule log was indeed a big log for the fireplace, and apparently was supposed to be the biggest log because it would be providing light on the shortest day (defined by the sun being up) of the year.
Obviously, it’s another of those customs, like Christmas trees, that really have nothing to do with Christmas but was practiced around the Christmas time and was just incorporated into the overall celebration.

So, merry Yule, yall.