By James W. Dolan

I really hate Christmas shopping. Malls terrify me. Just trying to find a parking space in the huge lot is the modern day equivalent of the gold rush. All those shoppers prowling the lot like so many gold hungry miners in search of a promising claim.

Parking space jumping now is like claim jumping then. You take your life in your hands should you grab a spot that another shopper had been eyeing. To avoid conflict and enhance revenues, malls will soon be selling deeded parking rights to their customers.

Like Fenway Park, you'll have rights to a particular space which you can permit family and friends to use and which can be part of your estate. Spaces will also have sponsors so when you're not parking on it, it can proclaim the joys of Jiffy Lube.

Having found a space, your next problem is finding the stores. If you can't see them from the lot, your best bet is to follow the throng. It's very dangerous traversing the lot so be very careful. Never stand in front of an empty space or cross behind a vehicle that is backing out of one.

Many of the high end malls will soon be providing parking lot guides. Their job is to get you safely through the lot to one of the 65 entrances to the mall. Once there you're on your own unless you have arranged for a personal shopping guide who will see to your every commercial need.

The first thing you notice upon entering the mall is the music. It is shopping music designed to put you at ease so that you will not be overwhelmed by the number and variety of stores. The music helps to put you in a shopping frame of mind to ease any tension you might have had about using your credit card.

Oh yes, the credit cards; they usually fall into three categories. The platinum means you're filthy rich. It should be produced with gusto and an air of superiority so the clerk and others know you've made it. Then there is the gold card for the up-and-comers, the strivers who haven't quite achieved wealth. Finally, there is the green card they mail to you when you graduate from high school. You take it out hoping nobody sees it or the scorn evident in the clerk's eyes as she rings up your charge.

The principal credit card company has been experimenting with the ultimate - uranium card - the card itself glows and is worth $50,000. It comes sealed in its own lead carrying case. On the low end, there is the proposed tin card - made from old recycled beer cans.

Now that you're in the mall you must decide on which of the 2,078 stores you should visit. First you go to the mall directory to find out where the stores are located. Are they in the underground level, mall level, food court level, lower or upper atrium levels or perimeter bridge level? Now, which of the 412 stores that sell kitchenware should you visit first?

Having identified a store, you next must weave your way through the happy shoppers, past the push carts and displays that block your path and then through the food court. There, 212 food outlets push a stunning variety of food including 73 varieties of pizza, 41 kinds of sushi and chicken that is crispy, very crispy, not crispy, stripped, buffaloed, popcorned and the soon to come, frazzled.

At last the dizzying journey is at an end, you are finally at the right store. Now if you can only find the right department and a clerk that can help you, you may be home for supper. "What, you're out of them! You gotta be kiddin. It says right here in your ad they're on sale."

"Sold out! Do you know what I've been through just to get here. How can I go back empty handed after all I'm a platinum card holder. Oh, you may still have a few left. Please check."

"Gee thanks, now I'm off the hook. Oh, incidentally what's your name? I'll ask my wife to ask for you when she comes back to exchange it after Christmas. Now, how do I get outta here?"

James W. Dolan is a retired Dorchester District Court judge who now practices law.