Once upon a time, I was in Target making arrangements with the concierge to take possession of the elusive and rare container of miscellaneous items. This was the ten by fourteen inch deluxe model constructed of space age plastics and/or polymers and held by some to be the finest container of miscellaneous items ever to be created by mankind. And it has a snap-on top. Fantastic.

But, friend, I digress. As I was standing there negotiating lease rates and delivery dates, a tousle headed miscreant sprinted by, arms pumping wildly, as if he were the anchor in the eight hundred meter relay, puffing and snorting. Now this chap wasn’t past five, or my knees for that matter. From his mouth came the chant, the howl, the song, all echoing what I could only assume what was foremost in his budding young noggin. This audio stream of consciousness was loud enough to halt conversations, turn heads, and startle the more unwary. He was like a red furred hound leaping through underbrush, long ears and jowls flopping, braying at the top of his lungs in pursuit of a panicked varmint who was soon to be treed, dispatched, and roasted over a spitting fire.

Jogging after him in a festive jingle of keys and purse buckles was a red faced mom. Her hair style had recently collapsed like a dynamited building. Her coat was half on, or off, with only a single arm successfully sleeved. Her Latte’ bounced and spitted molten java gobs over her hand and in a trail on the Formica behind her. She had a gleam in her eye and was locked onto her son like a laser guided missile, and she has hint of building amusement twitching at the corners of her mouth.

The boys holiday haiku was simply one word, stuck in and endless loop, ejected from his mouth with impressive velocity and enunciation, it was a good word, a word at some time impossibly important to everyone one of us, and the it went something like this: “Toys! Toys! Toys! Toys! Toys! Toys! Toys! Toys! Toys!Toys! Toys! Toys!”

Mother and son cut a wake of frothy mirth behind them, like the V from a ferry boat cutting across a choppy bay, and it was only after they had passed, and the din diminished that, we, the collective group of disparate shoppers, leaned far back on our heels, grasped our bellies with both hands Santa Claus style, and projected our bearish roars of amusement and glad tidings toward the fluorescent heavens before continuing our quests for our glittering and space age treasures.