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By John Pitts
Times Newspapers Writer
Research tells us that 40 percent of Christmas shopping is done in the final week before Dec. 25.
Even without any scientific evidence, it’s fair to assume that about 99.5 percent of the shopping done after 9 p.m. on Christmas Eve is done by men. Or, in the defense of the other .5 percent of last-second shoppers, because some man promised to buy something and then forgot. .
Every year when we re stalking the nearly empty aisles of some drug store while the employees are trying to close upshop and go home, we tell ourselves the following: "This is the last time this happens. Next year, it's going to be different."
Guess what happens the next year? Same time, same place, same phrase muttered again. "Next year, it’s gonna change."
Let's face it — we re probably not going to change.
Why do men wait to the last minute, sometimes even after the last minute? It's not that were (necessarily) lazy, or that we don't care. It's just that Christmas comes in the midst of football season and we have so much to keep up with that Christmas kinda sneaks up on us.
Or maybe we can blame it on evolu-. tion. We no longer have to chase wooly mammoths, or be chased by mastodons, in order to bring home the proverbial bacon. Yet we have to find a way to get our hearts racing every once in a while.
“Trying to fill a holiday shopping list 30 minutes before closing time of the last store in town will certainly get the blood flowing. And so does that special sweat that trickles down your brow when the fear — the fear of failure — starts to kick in.
There are actually two kinds of last-minute shoppers:
1. The well-organized fellow who knows exactly what he needs to buy, exactly what size and color it needs to be and exactly where to buy it.
His shopping excursion is planned minute-by-minute, not unlike the
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