Merry Christmas to Me

In spite of what is turning out to be a crushing hangover, I rally.

I am not a no-man-about-the-house victim!  Hell, no!  I own power tools!  I have a real chainsaw and the required safety goggles!  I operate a lawnmower and snow blower without supervision!  I have restarted the pilot light on my heater without blowing my address off the map!  I am woman!  Hear me roar!

And hear me digging in my purse for my keys and the 30% off coupon at Kohls and race back out to my car trying to remember which parking lot is closest to the vacuum department.

The vacuum department is daunting. Thank God it is small. I have only about 12 models to choose from.

The outrageously over-priced Dyson that promises to keep my house spotlessly clean without me having to even remove the darn thing from the broom closet.

The moderately priced Dyson that states that it is only 17 pounds suggesting that I might have to actually run this inferior model by myself, but may not sweat like work horse.

The two or three models that claim to be exact replicas or reasonable facsimiles of Dysons with more modest prices yet more garish colors. Not that anyone leaves their vacuum out as a conversation piece, but who wants a grape purple vacuum?

The Dirt Devil, the box for which depicts a woman in heels joyfully vacuuming up what appears to be dirt from her floor plant which was evidently upended by her heinous children which she should be off chasing and registering for boarding school.

The Cyclone.  To me, that just suggests more chaos and cleaning to do. No thank you.

The Kohls brand, which is trying to mimic all of them in some way and profoundly confuse you with its dirt-low price and promises.

I am looking at each one and trying to do the 30% off math in my head, which is equipped today with only a dehydrated, shriveled up specimen of a brain.

I try to do the math the reverse way. Seventy percent of outrageously over-priced is X.

I have very little chance of solving for X. 

My thoughts are further disturbed by a young couple who is also on a vacuum-buying misadventure.  She is reading the boxes aloud and he is commenting on pricing. She is suggesting one feature trumps another and he is saying the Kohls version claims to do it all like a Dyson at a fraction of the price.
I am wondering if she is thinking what I am thinking, and that is that the dude in the flannel will never put his hands on this particular appliance unless under duress and he should let the lady get whatever damn vacuum she wants to clean up after his sorry ass.

I get out my iPhone and click on the calculator feature.

I figure out my pre-Christmas on-top-of-everything-else threshold for pain. I lurch the mid-priced Dyson from the shelf and carry it on unsteady legs to the cashier.

Merry Christmas to me.