ROB WOUTAT: It's Beginning to Feel a Lot like ... Panic!

Some Christmas shoppers are guided by the following rule: Put it off until panic kicks in, then grab the first gift you see.

Many merchants accommodate this kind of shopper, as we see just inside their main entrances where we find conspicuous displays of gift possibilities for the desperate.

These displays are helpful because most feature unisex gifts, and because their placement near the main entrance spares desperate shoppers a lengthy search. In the panic stage of the shopping season, it makes no difference that these items are things everyone one can live happily and fruitfully without.

Just inside the main entrance to the Fred Meyer store in Bremerton, for example, you'll find an electronic card shuffler. It "professionally shuffles up to two decks" and features "easy push button operation." For benefit of French monolingualists, the box bears a picture of the shuffler and the word, "Automatique." Marked down from $30. Nine-volt battery and cards not included.

Except for those with advanced arthritis, or only one hand, chronic card players are probably skilled at shuffling already and don't want to be denied the satisfyingly tactile part of the process, so an electronic card shuffler scores high on the impracticality index.

A gift with the same level of practicality is the "Remote Control Caddy." It's a little leatherette-wrapped tray with felt-lined interior and three separate compartments, and it sits on a 360-degree swivel base. You can place it beside your TV chair and put your remote, your TV Guide, your glasses, your car keys, and your spare change in it. Or whatever. No one receiving this gift will ever wonder how he got along without it.

Near the "Remote Control Caddy," and even less utilitarian, is the "Magnetic Desk Sculpture." "Create unique metal sculptures instantly," we read on the box. "Magnetic base secures forms." (The forms look like tiny power lifters holding barbells aloft.) "Multiple pieces (21) for infinite possibilities." For the literate, the 30-piece set has letters of the alphabet instead of tiny weight lifters.

Another item in this display of dispensables, one that on first thought might seem to have some utility, is a wireless key finder. Who, after all, hasn't lost his keys? "Locate misplaced remote controls, keys, and more. Press button on color-coded key ring. Corresponding color coded receiver will beep or flash for quick retrieval."

Conceivably, this would be a practical solution for people who lose not just keys but cordless phones, eye glasses, hearing aids, dentures, and so on.

But people who lose things would probably lose a wireless key finder too, especially if it were on the ring with their keys. But even if it weren't, it would likely end up being useless unless you had a second wireless key finder to locate the first one, and then a third one to locate the second, and so on. Not only is this item wonderfully impractical, it's selling for 40 percent off the sticker price of $70.

Another item near the main entrance is "Men's Sleep Pants" packaged in a faux, 24-ounce Miller Lite beer can. (Twenty-two dollars. Buy one, get one free. Other beer brands available.) "Sleep pants" might be novel, I suppose, and that's good, but they're useful, unlike other items in this assortment of things nobody needs, and therefore seem out of place.

(As a man increasingly out of tune with his times, I wonder how sleep pants differ from pajama bottoms. And do the tops come in separate cans? If so, why? And who would buy pajama bottoms packaged in an aluminum can anyway, and for whom? A young woman for her boyfriend? A beer can collector?)

With 12 shopping days left, it's far too early to panic. Why put off until tomorrow what you can put off until December 24? Until then, it may help to remember that while love makes the world go around, panic gives it a little extra momentum.

Rob Woutat may be reached at