By Royal Command of Queen Linds, And With Tongue Firmly In Cheek

Because I am now holding my head, which was once betwixt my shoulders, in my two hands at the moment, I am finding it rather difficult to type. But type I shall!

It is now somewhere around the hour of 11:oo in the p.m. I have just this moment gotten home from yet another horrendous shopping trip which will be chronicled at a later date.

I also stuffed myself with sushi to compensate for the horrendous shopping trip, so it wasn't a total loss.

But that's another story.

It is now T minus some short time before The Family Photo is to be taken. In the past week Son came down with some sort of flu-type thing that kept him home from work. Thankfully, he seems to be better now. However, he has apparently given it to his lovely wife, Cutie's mom. She is being stoic about the whole thing and says the show must go on.

There have been numerous discussions regarding colors to wear. I made the mistake of saying "Fall colors such as sage green, burgundy, burnt orange" in my original email to everyone. As it turns out, the main colors we ended up with after much discussion and many long-distance phone calls are some sort of green, some sort of eggplant/burgundy/purple-y color, cream and black.

As you can tell, we're all about the color palette.

Now, for we of the OCD variety, let me explain how this ties in to the Family Shopping Trip.

It begins with me getting home from a full day of work and herding the turtles of the family out to dinner near where we plan to shop. Our quest is simple: a pair of black Dockers and a shirt in whatever color we decide to go with for each of the guys and a matching pair of black slacks and top for The Girl.

"That's child's play!" you cry. "An hour at most."

Oh, but you have never shopped with US.

The Dockers weren't a problem. The shirts were demons from the pit of hell.

At the point we began we had two colors possible. There was a lovely shade of rust, and then there was the eggplant. I was leaning toward the rust color because the jacket I had for the photo was black and gray and rust-colored. It was the jacket that covered the most hide. Second place went to the jacket in eggplant.

The Girl immediately chose two shirts in burgundy, neither of which would match any of what I had to wear. They were nixed.

We then went back and forth from one end of the men's department to the other, trying on shirt after shirt, never finding one small enough for The Boy (a 14.5 inch neckline) that would match one for Hubster. Either we found a rust-colored one for The Boy and there was NOTHING either in a stripe or solid for Hubster, or we found a stripe that would fit Hubster in eggplant and The Boy refused to wear a solid "purple" because it was too girly and he and his father would look like twins.

Let me hasten to say that as much as I love him, there is no way Hubster would pass for a fifteen-year-old with a 30-inch waist. It just ain't gonna happen.

The Girl finally gave up and went to look for her clothes. I continued in the futile search for shirts. Being as Hubster had acquiesced to visiting one store and one store only, I had to make the most of it. Hubster started whining after the first 45 minutes about how his feet hurt and he wanted to go home, and after a while he wandered out to the car as I kept up the manic hunt for the "perfect" shirts in the "perfect" colors.

The Girl found a top but no pants. The Boy went AWOL along with Hubster, and still I searched.

Finally I gave up. It was after 8 p.m., I was exhausted, I was angry, and I was frustrated. Most of all I was too anal for my own good.

So we went to another store.

Hubster stayed in the car this time. The Girl went off on her own, acting as if she didn't know me. The Boy shopped for jeans, still refusing to wear "purple" at all costs.

And when they dragged me out of store in a straight jacket I was still trying to find a nice stripe to match the rust-colored shirt in my hand.