Shopping with the wife and youngest son:

In the Hallmark store, where we have just learned...

1) They're out of the Tinkerbell ornaments that the wife wanted for her Secret Santa gift.

2) No, they won't sell the display ornaments. Not until the week before Christmas. Or rather, they don't dare, lest the home office revoke their franchise. Presumably so's we'll go searching all the other Hallmark stores to try to find one that still has what we want.

No, we won't.

But nor will we swipe the display ornaments, as others have apparently done.

So, as we turn away from the counter, the wife taps my shoulder. And points at the display rack next to my right shoulder.

At the small spider hiding there.

Cool.

Don't tell anyone...

As youngest son and I wander father into the store, I comment on the lifelike stuffed penguins.

Yes, penguins are in this year, thanks to the documentary hit film March of the Penguins last year, and Happy Feet this year.

"Now all we need is an Orca," is his response.

Later, I head back to fetch the wife, to show her the son's rearrangement of store merchandise. Finding her in a remote corner, by the less popular singing Christmas tree displays.

Pointing to the largest, bushiest tree on the top shelf, she tells me to "Shhhh!"

"I relocated the spider."

We head back into the center of the store. Where youngest son is proudly taking a cell phone picture of his creation.

Of a stuffed Beanie Baby orca snatching the head of a realistic stuffed penguin.

And then it is off to yet another store.