There are reasons I mostly stay home on Friday nights, I discovered as I ventured out in the rain tonight to the big box store (the one that starts with a K and ends with a mart). It’s invigorating to fight the less accomplished drivers for position on the wet pavement. It’s stimulating to elbow your way through the cluttered narrow aisles of a store teeming with other people who didn’t have anything better to do than go out in the rain on a Friday night.

Okay, it wasn’t really that crowded, but to me any congregation of people pushing shopping carts can seem like gridlock at the gates of a Springsteen concert.

Anyway, I happily accepted Tammy’s invitation to go shopping with her, so that we could coordinate our Easter gift-giving. Easter gift-giving is a sort of new phenomenon, at least on this scale, but I’ll jump at any invitation to spend my dwindling savings on the little guys. Besides, it was fun having my niece all to myself for an hour and a half.

We did pretty well, too, considering. Considering I had no ideas what I wanted and she had definite ideas of what she wanted. But we both found what we were looking for, in the sense that she found what she was looking for and I was satisfied with what I found. Overjoyed, almost, except that that’s too strong an emotion for a Friday night shopping trip.

My only failure was that I didn’t find anything for Aiden. I know. The easiest person in the family to shop for, and I couldn’t pull the trigger. But because he’s so easy, I’m not worried. I know I’ll come up with an idea before the day comes. In fact, I have a couple of things I was saving for his birthday that wouldn’t be inappropriate to give to him now, since he’s so advanced, saying real words and standing on his own and all. Nine and a half months old.