Early bird still hungry after catching worm

Published Dec. 17, 2007

There weren’t many "Early Bird" shoppers at the mall Saturday morning.
But my friend and I were two of them.
I had asked her half-jokingly the night before if she would be up for some 6 a.m. shopping.
She said maybe she would.
I thought maybe I’d be awake at 6.
But I knew it was fat chance on both counts.
Yet, here we were, dragging ourselves into JC Penney’s before dawn.
The few people who were in the store were lugging to the register $200 kitchen mixers that were on sale for $99.
For a moment, I got caught up in the frenzy and thought that I, too, should buy one of these mixers. I didn’t really need one but I hated to pass up such a bargain.
But I came to my senses and went to find what I was really looking for.
You see, this Early Bird was looking for a whirlybird – two of them actually. Remote-controlled helicopters for my boys – my boys who -- at 21 and 26 – outgrew toys long ago.
Too bad their mom never outgrew the need to buy them.
Or should I say the need to hunt for them? That’s what it’s really about because there are few things more thrilling to a mother than snagging an elusive toy at Christmastime.
When my boys were growing up, people didn’t shop online. They actually went to the stores.
It was mother-vs.-mother in the toy aisle – and may the best mother win.
The most formidable battles took place the year that every kid in the world – including mine – wanted “Ghostbuster” action figures.
The factory shipped the toys to the stores in big boxes, each containing an assortment of characters from the movie. Handy, unless you were looking for the Marshmallow Man. For, although these big boxes contained lots and lots of action figures, they only contained one Marshmallow Man.
One.
And you’ve never experienced real terror unless you’ve been in the same toy aisle as a Marshmallow-Man-crazed mom.
Store clerks risked life and limb as they opened these boxes – a dozen moms hovering over them -- to put the figures on display.
That’s the Christmas shopping spirit that I miss – and try to re-create every year.
About a month ago, I spotted mini remote-controlled helicopters in a drug store ad.
I had visions of the boys flying them around the house on Christmas morning.
But, when I went to the store to buy them, they were sold out.
I felt a momentary jolt of Marshmallow Man mania.
From that day forward, I scoured the ads looking for mini helicopters.
I spotted them again but the result was the same: The store had none left.
And so it was this helicopter hunt that brought me to the mall before dawn on Saturday.
I have to admit I was hoping for a Marshmallow Man showdown with a crazed mom or two but, alas, I just walked into the toy aisle and plucked two mini radio-controlled helicopters off the shelf.
There wasn’t even another mom in sight. It seemed too easy.
But I found out something after I bought those helicopters. I found out that there may be better ones.
Apparently, there are battling helicopters that come two-to-a-package and they have lasers so you can shoot your opponent’s copter, sending it into a tailspin.
I wonder where I can find those. I could always return the ones I bought and get the battling ones. It’s probably too late to order them online.
But there is still a week before Christmas.
And that’s a lot of time for a mom on a mission.