Be My Christmas Grinch

A Very Anti-Merry Christmas

AN: Once upon a time I was bored at my relative's house, was inspired by a cliché Hallmark movie, and just so happened to have my school laptop. So, Be My Christmas Grinch was born.

Hi, I'm Abby, the author. This is a short story (about 45 minutes to read) and will potentially have a sequel.

So read up, comment or vote, and enjoy the jolly good christmas spirit that comes with this fun, fast-paced romance story.

If you have suggestions, criticism, or grammatical help (I still don't know how to use a semi colon) please share. Thanks and enjoy!!

Be My Christmas Grinch

I looked dreadfully at the festive Hallmark card in my hands, bending the crisp, sharp corner with my unforgiving twitch.

Before I knew what I was doing, I ripped the green and red card straight down the middle splitting an illustrated ornamental Christmas tree in half. I crumpled the neat invitation and it's golden calligraphy into a ball of fire fuel and rather ungracefully threw it towards the fireplace.

The unfortunately placed Christmas stockings got in the way of my pitch, battering my paper ball down to the wood floor and therefore missing the heated flames by a long shot.

As much as I would've loved to have seen my present struggles burn in a chaos of orange, fiery flames; I was certainly in no mood to go retrieve the victimized card of my anger and try again for the two foot wide gap that is my fireplace. I sat on the couch and verbally screamed in agitation.

Don't worry, I was presently alone in my apartment so no one heard. Although I will admit it was less of a blood curdling scream and more of a growl-grunt mixed in one combined sound that in all honesty I didn't know I was capable of making.

The growl-grunt was however a very accurate depiction of my current state of mind. My situation couldn't possibly get any worse. Just when I thought it was finally taking a turn for the better too. I would really rather not summarize my very unfortunate collection of issues, but I feel it is essential for you to understand all that has made this holiday season the all time worst.

That to start off with is both an accomplishment, and failure all in one. I've had my fair share of dreadful Christmases, but out of the twenty-four I've lived through, this definitely tops off all the previous years. Let me explain.

We've all had that unfortunate dinner party with your loud, bizarre family where you're forced to listen to Christmas carols and smile obediently when you unwrap the presents you don't even want.

Then, once you've successfully shredded the reindeer-covered wrapping paper you usually unveil a box of jeans (or other clothing article) that in no way, shape, or form will fit you.

So, you say thank you a million times, pose for the camera, and after a few endless hours you finally are able to escape the all too festive family celebration. Once you get through the terribly cold, brisk December air, and back to the safety of your car you lock the doors, put the key in the ignition, and crank up the heat.

With an idea of false hope you search the boxes of gifted jeans for a receipt, so that hopefully you can return the clothing and instead get yourself something that you might actually wear. However, you quickly find that there is no receipt and you'll just have to donate the clothing to charity. Hey, at least someone else can be happy.

Then you put your car in reverse only to see your Uncle Jerry's pickup truck blocking you into the driveway, forcing you to slam on the brakes last second. Here you were thinking you could go home and enjoy the rest of your night reading that book you said you were going to read a year ago, but instead you're forced to turn your car off and slowly walk back to the door of your parent's house. All so that you can tell your uncle to move his car.

But wait, it gets better.

With your impeccable luck you get stuck in a boring conversation with your successful cousins (who are well paid dentists and lawyers) about adult things. They ask how your career is coming along and about any possible love interests that don't exist, and you end up staying an extra hour.

The Christmas struggle is very, very real, but even that terrible recap of every other holiday party is nothing compared to the past month I've had.

It all started on Thanksgiving when my best friend from college invited me to go Black Friday shopping with her. As much as I love Kristy, I should've known to stay home that day. I had a gut feeling that shopping was the last thing I should be doing, and guess who was right. Me, Gabby Dime. Advertisements Coordinator on the 2nd floor of Harold's Insurance Co.

Here is exactly how my Christmas fate went from bland and boring, to horrifically awful.

Black Friday is a day dedicated to angry hordes of shopping-obsessed maniacs, who flock to stores with the hopeless dreams of finding the best deals for their lengthy gift lists. In reality however, prices simply drop from insane, to reasonably insane.

All that being said, I still went, it sucked, and the sales really didn't save me much at all. In fact, it wasn't my savings that went up. It was my stress level. I let Kristy do the shopping and I was just her doll to dress up as we scampered from store to store. Basically everything I took home that night was things she forced me to purchase. Anyway, that's besides the point.

While we were in line to check out at Old Navy, I dropped one of my bags, and who else was their to save me but my ex from high school... Josh Davis.

He's a scrawny guy, a short five feet with tanned skin and brown messy hair. I was taller than him and trust me, our homecoming photos looked awkward as hell. It didn't help that I was determined to wear heels no matter how big of a giant I looked like compared to Josh.

Anyway, allow me to enlighten you with a crazy statistic. I live in a county with more people than the population of all of Alaska, and the one guy to show up is my high school sweet heart! Let me tell you right now, that break up did NOT go well. I repeat, did not!

So, how is it that my elf sized ex-boyfriend is underneath my very nose, literally scampering around in a desperate attempt to gather up the dropped clothing, out of an entire world of people, AND after not seeing him for years?

I can both mentally and physically cringe thinking back to the moment we came eye to eye. I kid you not, in that mere moment of accidental exchange he must've fallen in love with me all over again. I should've slapped him right then and there for just existing, but of course I didn't.

After my little mess was cleaned up he insisted on getting my number so we could, "Keep in touch." I tried to politely deny his request but Kristy gave him my number for me. Ever since that shopping trip three weeks ago, I've gotten a text from that gullible man every single night. To call him desperately romantic is an understatement.

Okay, press pause, and forward back to a couple of days ago.

How was I to know that that particular day would be so amazingly horrible? No one told me that Friday the 13th, 2013 would be my dooms day. I would've very much appreciated that note of information! I woke up to Mr. Gullible (aka Josh's) good morning text. It started off with a simple:

"Good morning beautiful!"

...and ended in:

"Did you receive anything special in the mail recently?"

I don't usually reply to his sappy texts, but the idea of a surprise delivery didn't sit well with me. I responded with a short reply.

"What do you mean?

His response was almost instantaneous.

"Oh, so you haven't gotten it yet..." Here he used the smirking faced emoji. I never appreciated his unprofessional use of emoticons. "I guess you'll just have to wait to find out."

It doesn't matter what you call him: Josh Davis, Mr. Gullible, or my ex, with his name comes a mouthful of vomit. He is quite possibly the creepiest guy in the country, and I had never been more horrified in my life. Was it a bomb? I would really hope so.

With that bad omen, the rest of my day continued on horribly.