Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat: I love Christmas. In fact, I’m pretty sure most people that have the slightest shred of sanity have a special place in their heart for gingerbread, stockings, and everything else merry.

However, I will not deny the stress that accompanies the holidays, and for me, honestly, it all boils down to one main thing: shopping. I mean, obviously, there’s the looming shadow of midterms and doing chores like your life depends on them– which it kind of does, since your mom might kill you if the house isn’t ready for the relatives.

But really, shopping just drains everything out of me. Normally I love it, but this time of year I’m in and out of the mall so fast I probably appear as a blur to the other shoppers.

Ross Park Mall dives head first into the holidays every year without looking back. Even before the Halloween season is over, you’ll see the sales popping up here and there. And then suddenly…you’re surrounded. Everywhere you turn there’s another 50% off sign in big, bold letters all up in your business.

Getting around the mall in a timely fashion is next to impossible. The escalators are basically a death-wish, but what else are you going to do? If you try to find an elevator, you might risk ending up next to that one creepy old man who has a bushy white beard, a red sweatsuit, and a beer belly — Santa, you think, until you realize the “real” one is currently in the middle of the mall asking the young’uns what they want to appear under their tree. So, I don’t know about you, but I’d rather scale the side of the balcony than share an elevator with the dear chap.

It’s endless, though, because even after you burst through the over-stuffed escalators, you’ve only just begun. Time to find the perfect gift– definitely a lot harder than it sounds.

Chocolate. But what if they think I’m calling them fat?

A necklace. No, wait, I got her that last year…

A gift card? Fuzzy socks? Bath bomb?

Finally, you make your decision: an ugly Christmas sweater that will for surely win them every contest they enter. And it must be fate, because there’s only one left in their size. However, it proves too good to be true, when the gentle tug you give it does nothing to pull it from the wrack. Your eyes widen in horror as you realize you have stumbled into the worst possible of all shopping situations.

The hangers are tangled.

You drop your shopping bags in panic, resorting to using both hands and a firm athletic stance as you wrap your fingers around one end of the hanger and pull as you’ve never pulled before. With white knuckles, gritted teeth and sweat beading at your forehead, you think why me? Why does this always happen to me?

“Do you need help, darling?”

You turn to see what you assume is a woman, though she is entirely obscured from view by 20 shopping bags. She deposits them on a nearby counter and turns back to you. You watch in awe as she does some magical maneuver and…oh…wait, no, she just took the sweater off the hanger…wow.

You proceed with a silent dance of jubilation and stick out your hand to her, a “thank you” on the tip of your tongue. But your celebration is cut short when she retracts the sweater and stuffs it into her own shopping cart, a look of casual victory in her eyes. Those dead, sunken eyes that you had moments ago thought were your Christmas miracle.

And at that moment you know you’ve encountered a Holiday Hoarder (aka Christmas Consumer, Selfish Elfish, and Merry Merciless Maniac) I’m sure there have been plenty of unfortunate souls that decide it’s a good idea to fight back. However, trust me, it’s always better to turn around and walk away. They are more dangerous than most people realize, with buff arms from lifting shopping bags, amazing height to their jumps from reaching things on the top shelf, and superb couponing skills. Most will bulldoze anyone who stands between them and a deal, so again I say steer clear at all costs.

By the time you are done with your shopping, your feet are so sore that the numbing trudge through the snow to your car is a welcomed sensation. You throw your bags into the trunk and climb into the front seat. Normally, this is the time in which you sit there quite literally frozen for a few minutes, scrolling through your adventures of the day in a slightly traumatized way. Then, shaking off the trance, you start the car and reach for your phone to turn on some much needed calming music. You pat around your pockets and you check between the seats — even go as far as to search the trunk — but even as you do so, the dread is balling up in your stomach as the unavoidable realization sets in.

You left your phone inside.