It’s late at night. I’m in the old store chatting with four members of the crew I worked with, making inappropriate jokes, generally getting away with murder since there isn’t a customer in the place. It makes me miss my time there, and it lightens their night up since they’re stuck there. The laughter is dying down when we hear it: a mid-1990s Toyota Celica that has been treated to the worst bodykit ever envisioned by the ricer world, in at least five shades of primer, with the prerequisite shopping cart wing on the back, comes in, finds a spot, and proceeds to rev to 9,000rpm before shutting down.

This oughta be good…

The two guys enter and immediately make a beeline for the “discount display”. The one that has been filled with Duck Dynasty stuff and the cheapest of the cheap air fresheners since before I was hired on at the beginning of the year. One guy grabs a basket and almost runs over to the other, who is grabbing stuff off of the display by the handful. All conversation stops as the four of us just watch this go down. I’m waiting for them to take the basket and bolt for the door. Instead they completely clear out the unit then walk up to have everything run up. We didn’t say a word, but our expressions must have said it all when the rougher of the two guys said (through a mouthful of chew), “I’m damn sure glad y’all were open…didn’t know where in the hell we were gonna get Christmas stuff this late at night!” They paid for their treasure, dropped the basket off at the front of the store, and the next thing we knew, the Celica was at 9,000RPM on it’s way out of the parking lot and up the street.

Silence lingered for a moment before one of them spoke: “Christmas stuff?”

Unless you have a hardcore gear head in your life and you bought your performance stuff locally from a place like AutoZone, O’Reilly’s or Advanced Auto, there should be absolutely no reason whatsoever for getting your Christmas presents from a parts store. If you picked up a screwdriver set for a stocking stuffer, ok, that might make sense. But these guys bought:

• Four Duck Dynasty camp cleaning cloths
• At least fifteen Duck Dynasty air fresheners
• Five cans of air freshener that appear to be from 1992
• One headlight repair kit

I’m not sure what to say about any of that. None of it is what I would picture as a “gift” from a parts store that anyone would ever want. I’m not enough of a fan of Duck Dynasty to understand why a camouflaged terry cloth makes a great stocking stuffer. Air freshener in a stocking would make me assume that you’re telling me that I smell like butt and need something to mask the odor. And a headlight kit on the last chance shelf makes no sense period.

I know that time is running short for gifts, but for the love of everything holy, either shop earlier or do the smart thing: package up an IOU and do something nice for them when the after-Christmas sales are on! If I find a cleaning cloth in my stocking this year I’m gonna strangle someone with it.