IT'S MID-MORNING at Towson Town Center, and even with the soft Christmas music on the sound system and the wonderful decorations in the stores, you can smell the fear in the air.
You can see it, too, on the faces of so many men here, so many of my brothers.
I say "brothers" because lots of us are members of the same pathetic fraternity: guys who wait 'til the last minute to shop for their wife's Christmas presents.
One way to recognize us is that we're nervous, twitchy guys - guys who move fast through the mall, but who also look preoccupied, paler than normal, even scared.
We look this way, of course, because this is Christmas shopping at its most pressurized.
Not only have we waited until the last minute to shop for our wife's presents, there's also an excellent possibility that, even when we buy these presents, we'll find another way to blow it.
Maybe we'll get the wrong gift.
Or the wrong size.
Or the wrong color.
And if we blow it, of course, our lives will be hell.
For days, maybe weeks, the atmosphere in our homes will be so thick and frosty you could cut it with a chainsaw.
So with the clock ticking down, with shopping time 'til Christmas being measured now in minutes rather than days, we launch ourselves into a frenzied search for the right gifts that will, hopefully, bring us salvation.
On the first floor of the mall, I meet one of our brethren, a man named Ray Koch from Jarrettsville. (At such times, it occurs to me that we should have a secret signal or handshake, something to identify us as part of the brotherhood. But ... look, I'm too busy to think about that right now.)
Sure enough, Koch, 52, is doing last-minute shopping for his wife, Dawn.
Just this morning, he bought her a ... well, I can't tell you that. It would ruin the surprise for Dawn should she, in a moment of profound boredom, actually read this column today and discover what her husband bought her for Christmas.
But as I chat with Ray Koch, I realize there's something wrong here. For a moment, I can't quite put my finger on it.
Then it hits me: There's no fear in his face.
There's no thin sheen of flop sweat on his forehead, his breath isn't coming in quick, rapid bursts, his heart doesn't seem to be racing.
Why, he actually appears to be ... smiling.
Brother Ray, I say, aren't you afraid of blowing this search for Dawn's gifts?
"No," he says, "she gives me a list of things to get her."
Ah, I see. A list. See, I don't get a list.
"Yeah, she'll make me a list about two weeks ahead of time," adds Koch, who owns a construction company. Then he laughs: "But I don't pay any attention to it 'til two weeks later."
It turns out Ray and Dawn Koch have been married 30 years - they had plans to celebrate their wedding anniversary in Vegas this fall before the terrorist nuts crashed the planes Sept. 11.
Sometime during those 30 years, Dawn must have realized that Ray did better on these last-minute sprees if she actually told him what she wanted for Christmas.
Unfortunately, Dawn might have realized this after a Christmas morning when she unwrapped a particularly, um, unfortunate present from Ray.
(Look, I know a guy - true story - who panicked when last-minute shopping for his wife one Christmas and bought her a ceramic duck. Not because the woman had a thing for ducks - or even ceramic, for that matter. Just because he couldn't think of anything else to get her.)
Anyway, to me, the list thing is a stroke of genius.
Maybe I can get Koch's wife to call my wife and convince her this is the way to go.
After I left Koch, I spoke to three or four other men buying last-minute gifts for their wives, although it was clear the mall was absolutely crawling with members of the brotherhood.
They had endured the horrors of the parking garage - the fabled Six Levels of Hades - and now they were desperately racing hither and yon for inspiration, to Kay Jewelers and Bath & Body Works and Nordstrom, even to the Indian and Nepali Accessories and Crafts cart, the Sweatshirt Place cart, the See's Candy cart.
Over the sound system, one heard "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing," and yet I knew there would be no peace on Earth for these men - or me, for that matter - if they didn't find the right gift, and fast.
On my way out, I ran into Chris Brown, a 33-year-old engineer from Baltimore shopping for a present for his wife, Lisa.
"Actually, I'm finishing up," he said. He was carrying a shopping bag from ... well, never mind where it was from. But it contained a very nice present, indeed.
Of his last-minute shopping for Lisa, Brown said: "I'm sort of embarrassed to be here this late."
Aren't we all, Brother Chris, I said.
Aren't we all.
