A-shopping we will go... hic

Terri Psiakis fills her hip-flask in preparation for the perils of retail Christmas shopping.

If you're reading this, you're obviously organized: you've done all your Christmas shopping and you're now taking a moment to relax, secure in the knowledge that you've got something for everyone. Either that or reading the last sentence has just prompted you to remember someone you've forgotten to buy for and you're now hoping to god you've still got time to shop.

I hate Christmas shopping. Don't get me wrong – I love to give. But if someone else could take care of the shopping bit and just leave me to do the giving I'd be far happier.

I always have car parking issues. Being a suburbanite, I do my Christmas shopping in a big plaza along with about eleventy-million other people. The odds of finding a park that's actually in the same suburb as the plaza are the same as the odds of getting in and out of Ikea in under ten minutes: slim to none.

Inevitably I end up stalking shoppers by following them from the shops to their car. Or what they think is their car. I love it when they realize it's not their car and they can't remember where their's is, making me waste half a tank of petrol following them around the car park at 3km per hour. I also love it when they find their car but then inform me that I can't have their park because they're not leaving, they're just dumping their purchases and going back for more. Despite the fact that I've just wasted half a tank of petrol following them around the car park at 3km per hour. Note that when I say "I love it" what I really mean is "I want to punch all these people in the clam."

I have issues with the 24-hour trading that happens the night before Christmas Eve. Everyone in there is drunk. Why people drink a bottle of Sambucca and then decide to do their Christmas shopping at 3am is beyond me. If you have ever received a plastic reindeer that shoots chocolate-covered sultanas out its arse when you squeeze it, you know whoever gave it to you was drunk at the 24-hour trade.

Even the shop assistants working the 24-hour trade are drunk. It's the only way they can get through their shift. I know – I used to work in a retail department store.

One year my friend Kate and I were rostered to work from 11.30pm until 7.30am. At 7.30pm on the night we were due to work, we went to a bar. At 10.35pm Kate (who should not have been driving) accidentally ran over the left foot of the shopper we were following around the plaza car park. At 11.25pm we finally got a park and reported to work. At 2am I phoned for a pizza to be delivered to us from the food court. At about 4am I had a tiny vom in the staff toilets. Somewhere between 5 and 5.30am Kate fell asleep in the back corner of the manchester department, standing up against a shelf with her face resting on a pile of towels. At 6am I rang reception and said that if I heard Mariah Carey's Christmas album played over the store’s P.A. one more time I would personally throttle the receptionist. By 6.20am I had received "counseling" from my manager. At 7.38 I was asleep in Kate's car as she drove me home.

If reading this has just reminded you that you've forgotten to buy something for your friend Kate, don't worry. You've still got time to crack open the Sambucca.

- Terri Psiakis