Done yet?
Tick-tock, says the Santa-shaped clock on the wall.
There aren't many shopping hours left before Christmas.
"Done!" Patsy Speca exclaimed, walking out of the Caldor at Golden Ring Mall late Thursday night with gifts for some of the 20 people she buys for. "The rest gets money."
As Ms. Speca was leaving the mall with all the names on her list crossed off, James Saylor was just getting started.
A sales clerk at a Wal-Mart in Beltsville and a delivery man for a line of fragrances, Mr. Saylor gets up every day at 6:30 a.m. and doesn't fall back into bed until the other side of midnight.
It is a schedule that doesn't afford time for personal indulgences such as shopping.
"All my grocery shopping is done at the all-night Giant, so I'm sure I'll be out here shopping on Christmas Eve too," said Mr. Saylor, a jolly man who seems content just to be out strolling with a friend. "I'll spend about $500. I'd spend more if I had more."
As Mr. Saylor walked up and down the aisles of Spencer Gifts with his 2-year-old goddaughter riding his shoulders, salesclerk Robyn Telesca described what it's like to wait on people, mostly adolescents, doing last-minute shopping.
"It's hell," said the 18-year-old, laughing. "We're busy, understaffed, and there's a lot of rude people to deal with. I told some littleboy to stop messing the place up, and he said he was going to slap me."
As for her own shopping, Ms. Telesca announced proudly: "I started today, and I finished today."
In between, about $250 made its way from her pockets into cash registers around town. "I wanted to spend more, but I didn't have it."
But it doesn't always take a lot to do the trick. After a half-hour of walking up and down the aisles, Mr. Saylor emerged with a $3.99 purchase for his father, a gift he knew would please: a small, cast-iron race car.
"He's got about 400 of them," he said. "Dad loves to collect things. When McDonald's first came out with their 'Happy Meals,' I bought him $60 worth of the little robots they were giving away with hamburgers."
Around the corner, a 55-year-old Rosedale housewife sat happily with a milkshake at a fast-food restaurant, unconcerned with buying material things to commemorate a spiritual holiday. Across from her, a family debated what kind of VCR to buy.
"We don't splurge, we consider it more of a holy holiday," said the woman, a Roman Catholic who did not want her name printed. "It's still Advent for us, not Christmas. Places are all lit up a month ahead of time, and then the day after Christmas, when people should be celebrating, the trees are out on the street. We keep our lights on through Epiphany, around Jan. 8, when the wise men visited with their gifts."
At the Recreation Pier turned TV studio on Thames Street in Fells Point, Yaphet Kotto of "Homicide" said that not only did he have all of his shopping done, but he was grateful to do it in a majority-black city such as Baltimore.
And Daniel Baldwin, who also stars in the show, said that the wine bottles he was carefully laying in the trunk of a black Lincoln Continental brought his shopping to a close as well.
Almost.
By now, Mr. Baldwin is on his way to a canyon resort near Tucson, Ariz., to look for a little something for himself: a ranch.
For Rose Price of Northeast Baltimore, the ticket was "The Little Smart Driving School."
"It's for him," she said, pointing to her 14-month-old son Eric in his stroller. "He wants to drive."
At the Piercing Pagoda, where 23-year-old Richard "Scott" Williams bought himself a Christmas present by having a second hole punched into his left ear, store manager Tammy Price will have logged about 86 hours by tonight.
When the malls get really crazy, as they promise to do today for the last of the last-minute shoppers, Ms. Price has to be more than polite. She must be prudent as well.
She said: "The most dangerous question you can ask is: 'Who's next?' "