What??? I didn't spend a Sunday immobilized in front of the TV set, watching my good fortune in the football pool swirl down the drain? Well no, I didn't, and why should I? After fourteen weeks of the NFL season, it's become clear to me that actually watching the games doesn't help me figure out who's good (nobody) and who stinks (the Raiders, the Cardinals, and any team with "New York" in its name).

Besides, the first weekend in December is almost the last weekend of the year that I'll dare to venture out in public. The sun was shining for a change, and I'm mostly healthy for a change. And Mom wanted to do some shopping, so we hit the stores together.

Obviously, I can't tell you where we went or what we bought. I expected horrible traffic, so I was prepared to stay mellow and just let things go. I decided not to allow the other drivers to get to me, no matter what stupid maneuvers they made. Frankly, I'm a little out of practice and not that good myself, especially in crowded parking lots.

That's probably reason enough to keep me home the next two weekends. Shopping for me is a series of dead ends and blind alleys. If I can make a little progress, as I did today, I'm satisfied. I didn't find the two items I went out looking for, but I ran across two other things that I did like enough to buy.

Some might say that if you're out shopping for over four hours in December, you should come home with more than two packages. I might even say that myself, except that I'm not that critical of my own shopping skills. In fact, if Mom hadn't been with me, I'd most likely have wandered around for a couple of hours and come home empty-handed.

Any further shopping I do will be during the week or on line. We didn't even get to any of the major malls today, where the real crowds are, or to any stores out of town, where I was more likely to find what I wanted. If I can't get done what I need to do without bumping up against a million people at a time, I just won't get it done. But I think I will.