My mom is a HARDCORE shopper – and by hardcore, I mean anyone that shops more than me. And by ‘more than me’, I mean anyone willing to stay in a store beyond the absolute minimum time it takes to put things in the basket. I believe people refer to this insanity as “browsing” – I am not a browser. I don’t even really like to browse in bookstores.
I am not the ‘girlfriend’ that you want to take clothes shopping with you. I have a friend that can spend HOURS in a shoe store. HOURS. I Cannot Comprehend. I go into those wretched stores to buy a specific kind of [black] shoe (or [black] boot), I have never just gone into a shoe store to look at shoes. It sounds like torture.
For the good of my marriage- my husband does all the ‘big ticket item’ shopping/research. He shops like a snail. He looks at each and every item – he pours over ads – HE WILL GO TO MULTIPLE STORES. Before, he’d drag me on these hellish missions – and I’d last about 20 minutes before the kvetching began. I wanted to lay on the floor and scream a lot. For some reason I exasperated him. We finally came up with a solution. He does all the prelim research, including physically going to the store(s). When he narrows it down to three options, he calls me and I go to look. However, if it’s something I don’t know anything about or don’t really care about (electronics), he’s free to make all the decisions himself. On the upside, I get to go grocery shopping alone in the mornings. That’s only shopping I like. And I don’t want snail-man with me. Had we not come to this compromise, I’m sure our marriage would have ended.
I’m pretty sure this inability to shop stems from my fragile youth. Because, you see, my mother is a HARDCORE shopper. And she’s painfully patient (slow) with making a decision. The most painful memories of my shopping-youth were visiting the furniture stores. It took my mom SIX BLOODY LONG YEARS to buy a couch. We went to furniture stores all over Tucson and Phoenix. The same stores over and over and over and over and over again. HOURS of my life were spent in pre-arranged furniture clusters in showrooms. I would spend my (tortured) weekend days roaming from sectional to sectional ‘befriending’ the ceramic display animals. I’d given them all names – complete with back-stories and adventures. That part wasn’t so bad, along with laying on waterbeds and drinking bottled water from the cone cups (which was an novelty in the 70s & 80s).
I eventually reached an age where I was able to stay home alone (THANK GOD AND ALL THE ANGLES) and I was released from furniture-store-prison. I still had to go to the maul (sic) with her when I needed non-thrift-store-quality-clothing, and that was painful for everyone…but that’s the price you pay for having kids, right? Right.
My mom still goes to furniture stores – and her husband, bless his little Viking heart, goes along with her. I think he actually enjoys it. I’m glad for Mom, she deserves to have a willing shopping companion, especially after being tortured by me all those years at the stores. Because, you see, I fully realize that even though I talk a lot about being tortured at having to go the stores with people, I was no picnic myself.
I’m actually banned from shopping with my husband and daughters. How cool is that? And at the same time, very sad. Two daughters and I hate shopping … I’m like you… Tantrums and such. I stand outside the stores with the old guys as they hold their wive’s purses.
GOD – I WANT TO BE BANNED FROM SHOPPING!!!!!!!!!!
It’s beautiful AND I get the house to myself for hours. Haaaa. Heaven
We could get together and read library books.
Oh yea and play in the pool 🙂
Yay! I play a mean game of whirlpool splooshball!
I do not like shopping for clothes. I have no patience for it. There are certain friends I cannot go with. Ugh! They take forever! Anyway, this can be a problem as every season starts, and I look in my closet and complain that I have no clothes. But then again, it’s good on our travel budget. 6 years for an item would do me in too. Traumatic! 😉
I have 2 friends that I can shop with – and it’s very fast and going to the thrift store. But, like you, I can’t abide going out an buying clothes on a regular basis.
All long term shopping is traumatic!
My idea of hell on earth? IKEA. Hands down the worst place ever.
I would NEVER got there – it’s gotta be worse than Costco.
Oh wow. Now that IS a tight race.
Coincidentally, I spent six years avoiding furniture stores.
You lucky bastard.
My wife just brought home an 80s vintage orange sectional chair for me. It doesn’t fit with anything we have, which means it EXACTLY fits with everything we have.
hee hee… 80’s is NOT vintage!!!! 50s & 60s are vintage…
Sorry. I got “vintage” confused with “ugly.”
it happens. I’m disconcerted to have my teen years now described as vintage… WAAAAHHHHHH
sigh
I don’t think I love to shop as much as I love to spend. If I could order everything online and have it delivered to my door, I’d be content to never go to the maul again. 😉
hee hee – I do like online ordering – of books, books, and more books… ADD TO CART …
Wait….you don’t browse book stores?! I could spend an entire week in my local 2nd hand book store and still not be done, seriously, I need to take a coffee and a packed lunch.
No – I go in with a specific purpose – I am looking for X kind of book and look around for that…but I don’t have any patience for just browsing without intent.
hee hee…I’d have to be the one to volunteer to get your coffee and buy a lunch b/c I’d be so antsy.
Oooh I love a good coffee volunteer. I think we may actually be a book shop match!
🙂
Your friend who spends hours looking at shoes is the norm, not the exception to the rule. People look to fill a need or eliminate boredom with THINGS. Consumerism is shoved in our faces at every turn, but it never works. NEVER. Once you have that thing you HAD TO HAVE, it is quickly replaced by something else you thing you HAVE TO HAVE. It’s the oldest game in the book. It’s the grease that keeps the economy engine running.
That’s my kid and video games – it drives me crazy.
Can you put a stop to it? Who’s running the show?! I don’t know how old your kid is and I know at some point, short of shutting off the electricity, it’s out if your hands.
Just reread my original comment. Sorry for the word-collisions. It’s still quite early here. Didn’t mean to dirty-up your comment section.
No apologies needed.
I do by not buying anything…but saves his money and outsmarts me – some of the time…but not all of the time… I would love to undo the whole TV/video game thing…but you know, Pandora’s box and all…
I’d live to undo Facebook and, believe it or not, cell phones. Lotsa luck with THAT!
I hate cellphones. FB – I’m ok with. It has it’s good things.
But we have so much fun ‘shopping’ at Savers together. Does this not count?
You are about the only person that I can shop with 🙂
My shopping is very targeted and goal-oriented. I don’t much understand browsing. It seems like torture to me, too. At least you have such a fantastical imagination, Denise, and you made friends with some statutes! Good to see you, miss!
We shop alike – whoo hoo. I go in, get what I need and done.
I think it was sheer desperation, Amy – sheer desperation that drove me to talking to statues.
Thank you for coming!
“very targeted and goal-oriented” Me too. Even if I go browsing through a thrift store, it’s looking for specific things and ignoring all else.
Pretty much – me too. I just don’t have it in me to browse like most people. God help anyone that has to shop with me and they want to do it at a leisurely pace –
But what if those people are atheists? Then what? Who helps them?!
Atheists know better…
🙂
Agnostics – we get guilted into it but then the other person quickly regrets their instance.
Agnostics need to commit. Come on!
Nope – I’m wishy washy – it’s about may/maybe not – but who cares!
But what if there’s a pop quiz? Then what? Utter panic.
C) All of the Above
Atta girl. 🙂
🙂
I can put those blinders on in my quest for the one item! Hey Mike! How are you?
I’m good, Amy. I’ve finishing up school, so that’s why I have been away for what seems forever. Hope you’re doing good. 🙂
Will you give me permission to get my PhD?
You want to get a Phony Decoder? Sure. Go nuts.
hee hee – silly boy.
Phillip Drummond, then? I’m pretty sure anyone can get him.
I’m pretty sure you can KEEP him…
Dammit
Have you been waiting for someone to unload him upon?
I will take any of the following:
Benedict Cumberbatch
David Bowie
Matthew Bomber (I don’t care about his sexual orientation)
Johnny Depp
I have to look up who Matthew Bomber is, but I’m pretty I don’t have him. I don’t even own a bomber jacket.
He’s the beautiful man on White Collar (I might have mispelled his name…)
I will also take any pasty, skinny, tragic-looking man 🙂
anyone else available on the list?
Pasty? Hmm. It’s hard to find pasty in California, but for you I will search high and low. (Or if it’s a Sunday morning edition, then I’ll search Hi and Lois)
snark snark- I appreciate your efforts –
You can typically find them in the corners looking tragic –
What are you finishing up? Just curious. Well, good for you! I’m hanging in there.
Technical writing. It will hopefully make me more versatile/marketable.
how about adorable?
Still working on that.
🙂 You got a good start!
That’s great! Congratulations! I’ve often wondered if I should go in that direction. Do you like it?
The classes have been interesting, yeah. Certain aspects of it appeal to me more than others, but that will help me focus better when looking for a job. Overall, I’m really glad I did it.
So funny! No wonder I’ve always felt drawn to you! We are kindred spirits in the shopping department. Honestly, my poor kids are still sweltering in pants right now because they have outgrown last year’s shorts and I dread going to the store. But I will. I will suck it up and hit Savers one of these days. Alone. On a mission. And I will leave with my summer bag and claim that I have done my time for at least six more months. 🙂 I don’t mind the actual shopping if I know what I am going in for and can grab and go, but I utterly detest clothes shopping. My wardrobe is pathetic. I have so few clothes myself right now that I am going to have to break down there too. Either that or join a nudist colony. 🙂
NUDIST COLONY!!!!!!! Oh wait – would I have to worry about extraneous hair?? That might bode ill. I think living in a perpetually cool place is where it’s at…same clothes year ’round.
D wears shorts and tees or long pants (not jeans) and tees – so he’s easy!
The only shopping I tolerate is going to the supermarket for food so that I don’t starve. Everything else, I believe, is recognized as a form of torture under the Geneva Convention.
I’m with you on that one, my friend~
There was a time here in the UK that some supermarkets offered a childminding service so offspring could be left in safety to not fill the trolley with crap and to make the shopping experience better for the fraught parents. That seems to have fallen by the wayside. I remember seeing a conversation online about how they should do the same, but for women to leave their husbands, and then someone pointed out that this already exists and it’s called “the local pub”. I agree with the idea of leaving the non-shopping member of a party in a suitable location to allow them to entertain themselves and to be retrieved when an opinion is needed or the deed is done. Sometimes, I’d want to be that person. Sometimes, I’d want to be the shopper. It kind of depends on my mood!
Here! Here! We need ideas like THAT!
I personally don’t mind where I’m left providing I can get a hot chocolate or a gin and tonic (weather depending) and the loos are clean!
And a place for a good read!
“I go into those wretched stores to buy a specific kind of [black] shoe (or [black] boot), I have never just gone into a shoe store to look at shoes. It sounds like torture.”—I could have written those words! So much like me. 🙂
🙂 We keep the stores uncluttered for those that love to shop.
What you don’t understand, Denise, is that shopping was the only adventure in Tucson during
the 70’s and 80’s. It was so boring and hot here that the stores held a fascination for me. No I’m LYING. I’m a compulsive shopper!!!
HA! You’d have shopped anyplace, Mom!
Hi, Denise’s mom!
You’re so cute, Rosemary.
I’m with you. when I go with my wife, I bring my phone and a book so that I don’t reach critical frustration/boredom levels.
If only I was allowed just sit and read….
On the other hand, I’ve also lost my wife in dept stores because my nose was in a book.
when that happens, I just walk around yelling “WIFE!” until I hear “HUSBAND!”, and then I can find her.
Oddly, no one other than my wife has ever yelled back.
They are just clearing space for the yelling weirdo.
Just the way I like it!
And that’s saying A LOT for someone yelling in stores in NYC…
What!? You can’t browse a book store and you’re a research librarian? How can that be? Anyway, I’m pretty much with you on the anti-shopping attitude. I’ll join you and TD for that fancy coffeh.
Oh – I go in an buy books – MANY MANY MANY BOOKS – but I can’t sit and browse shelves for long periods of time. I like to ‘browse’ on databases and then go to the stores to the area I want and get the books. I also don’t like looking thru an assortment of no-org-scheme books either.
I can spend days in bookstores. DAYS. But that’s the extent of my malady.
Only if I could actually sit around and read would I want to do that 🙂
Oy, I’m with you. I hate shopping.
Anti-shoppers, unite! But not at a store!
How about Starbucks? I’m feeling a chocolate chip frappuccino…
I’m there –
SWEET!