THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 9, 1994 TAG: 9412080167
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Over Easy
SOURCE: Jo-Ann Clegg
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
I was sitting with my calculator the other day randomly punching keys when I came up with some interesting figures. There are roughly 3,744 hours each year in which I can do my Christmas shopping.
My formula for arriving at that number was pretty simple. I took the 365 days on the calendar and subtracted Christmas itself which is the one day out of the year most stores are closed. Then I set aside 52 Sundays for later use. That gave me 312 days on which the malls are open between 10 a.m. and 9 p.m. to provide the great unwashed shopping public with 3,432 hours in which they can shop 'til they drop.
Then I added back in six hours of shopping on 52 Sundays, or an additional 312 hours of mall pounding. If I hit the right keys on my calculator, that adds up to 3,744 hours or 224,640 minutes between Dec. 26 of one year and midnight of Dec. 24 on the next.
If that's the case, how come I usually find myself digging through my closet at 0001 on Dec. 25 looking for one last gift to wrap, one last tidbit with which to stuff a stocking?
That is probably because I represent the .001 percent of all women in the world who hate to shop. If there are nearly a quarter of a million minutes of shopping time between one Christmas and the next, I have close to half a million reasons for not taking advantage of them.
For obvious reasons, I don't shop when it's too hot, too cold or too rainy. That knocks off about 1,100 hours of shopping time right there.
I also don't shop when it's too nice. Who wants to waste time in a stuffy mall when there are flowers to be planted, bikes to be ridden, walks to be taken and waves to be watched? In most years, that knocks off 550 hours. Already we're down to a little under 2,100 hours of available time.
I do not shop when the malls are too crowded (at least 320 hours) because I don't like being run over by 9-year-olds pushing baby brothers in strollers.
And I don't shop when the malls are too empty because you never know what might be lurking in one of those dark, empty corners where they hide the places that repair shoes. If you figure there's one day each week when that's the case, we knock off another 572 hours, which leaves us at 1,202 hours.
I also don't shop on national holidays (including those of Mexico, Canada, France or the United Kingdom), my birthday, Bill's birthday, or the kids' birthdays. I do, however, shop on my mother's birthday and Kristin's birthday since that's what they like to do.
I may, or may not, shop on Bill's mother's birthday, depending on what she wants to do. My grandson Alex has yet to indicate whether he'll want to shop like his mom (always) or like his dad (never).
Altogether, that's about another 150 hours of lost shopping time, leaving the total available hours at 1,052, even before I knock off my work time.
That would be a couple of hours every Sunday (104), all day every Monday (572 hours), half of Tuesday (286) and about five hours each week for phone calls and interviews (260).
Which puts me 160 hours in the hole even before the shopping year has begun and which also explains why, two weeks from tomorrow night, I will be digging through my closet for gifts and stocking fillers.
I may even try a new route this year. I once read an article about pantry shelf Christmas gifts. If worse comes to worse, I can plop a can of artichoke hearts, a box of Orville Reddenbacher Lite and a can of V8 in a recycled grocery bag, tie a bow on it and present it as the latest trend in healthy snacking.
OK, so it's a weak excuse for a gift. But when you're 160 hours down and the old guy in the red suit is knocking on the chimney cap, you do what you have to do. by CNB