Wear Loose Clothing: The last thing you want to do is draw attention to yourself. It is never the person wearing the most clothes that gets the attention. So I strongly suggest you do not going streaking through the mall ‘butt nekkid’ in order to get all your shopping done faster, because it won’t work. You need to blend in, so please wear clothes. I wouldn’t say this if it weren’t a problem.

Equip a Crowbar: Most people forget to bring at handy weapon along with them for their holiday shopping spree. Many people will attempt to cut you in line or take products out of your shopping cart, this is when you need to unsheathe your crowbar of justice and give the thief a good prodding to the face. I think it’d be a nice touch to throw in a stupid one-liner before you do like “Eat Crowbar!” I would suggest that you bring a shovel, but they aren’t as good for two reasons: they are too big and therefore hard to conceal, plus you can use the rounded part of a crowbar to scoop in things such as out of reach gifts or you can even give a long distance wedgie to someone you don’t like.

Wear a Santa Hat: No one can stay mad at a guy wearing a Santa hat. So when you cut people in line you can just ignore them and when they confront you, you can say “I hate Christmas! Bah Hum Nugget!” and they will be so confused that they will just leave you alone. The Santa hat just adds to the bewilderment.

Wear Goggles: When you get caught by the security guard for ramming your crowbar into other customer’s faces, you will give him a little attitude and he won’t like it. Lucky for you, I am telling you his next move. He is going to reach for his mace and you are going to reach for your goggles. He will spray you and you are just going to laugh at him as it slowly drips off your goggles. That’s when you make a run for it.

Grow a beard: You’ll see why

Have a funny face prepared: It is important that before you go shopping you have a specific funny face in your arsenal and make sure that you can perform it on cue. You will make this face the entire time you are shopping. This will come in handy when the security guard you got maced by tells the police what you looked like and they will all think that you have a natural bitter-beer face (does anyone remember those commercials?) and think you have a beard. Last year I got into a little bit of trouble with the security authorities at the mall last year and this is what the police sketch of me looked like:



Now the police will be looking for a guy wearing an elf hat, with a sloppy beard, one bad eye, one eye impossibly large and a disfigured mouth. Now it is important to make sure you shave as soon as you get home, because now you are a fugitive, but you are a fugitive who has completed his shopping.

Some of you may have looked at some of my pictures and think, “Where have I seen this guy before?” Well I’ll put up this picture of me and Tiger Santa (which I should have posted along with the article which I mentioned him).



Where have I seen that gentlemen on the left from? Let’s take a closer look. Oh I know, It’s the real life version of Jimmy from South Park!



War Eagle!

Ryan can be contacted at ryan@theauburner.com