Getting ready for a bridal shower this weekend. Need to go shopping. I hate shopping more than anything in the world. I hate the crowds of people. I don’t so much mind spending money—I’ve never had a problem with that—but I just hate having to be in places where people are crowding around, breathing my air and making me crazy. I avoid Christmas shopping as long as I can, staying out of the mall until the weekend (or often, mere days) before the big day and then making a mad sprint through as few stores a possible to get as many things as I can find that make sense before my brain explodes.
Honestly, when all is said and done, people usually don’t bother me when I’m actually at the store. Perhaps my “Approach me and I’ll cut your tongue out.” demeanor repels most people? I think I just dread it so much, working myself up over the very idea of going shopping, that I blow it out of proportion. I don’t know, really, if it could be as bad as I imagine it. I think that would have to involve students I dislike and family members I avoid coming up and licking me on the face while I’m trying to pick between twelve things that have nothing to do with any of the people I’m shopping for to be that bad. That sort of thing. I just don’t want to take the chance that that could ever happen.
Which leaves me with online shopping. Except that I really like holding something in my hand before I spend money on it. I want to check the heft of an item (could this be hurled at someone’s head in a fit of rage, if needed?) the feel of the fabric (would this make me want to sandpaper my skin off after feeling it?) and the actual color vs. the printed color of catalogs or the digital color of computer monitors (where is that knitting needle? I need to gouge my eyes out—that green is so awful!). Add to the top of that my inherent cheapness—I don’t want to pay shipping on something I could get down at the local mall if only I could work my various psychosis into cooperating long enough to walk in, make my purchase and leave. The cherry on top is my desperate need for instant gratification. Once I’ve decided I want to have something, I’m just not interested in five to seven business days of waiting.
I read once that the best way to shop was to go into the store, see the merchandise in person, try it on if needed and then go find the best deal online and buy it there. This seems so ridiculous to me because it’s all the things I hate most about all brands of shopping. Go to a crowded store and try to avoid eye contact with all people there? Check. Finally have to get help finding what you need from the almost non-existent employees, thereby rendering nil your attempt to avoid people? Check. (Bonus points if the employee recognizes you—or is just particularly chatty—and strikes up a conversation, making you stand there, nodding, grunting affirmation to whatever they are saying and looking furtively away while you shift uncomfortably from left to right and back to left.) Go home with nothing to show for the self-sacrifice of leaving your cocoon? Check. Having to put your trust in the interweb skillz—not getting your credit card number stolen, making sure they send the right items, that sort of thing—of the company shilling your item for the cheapest rate? Check. Having to wait a freaking week and a half for the danged stuff to finally show up? Yup, check that one too.
Yeah, I don’t so much like shopping that way.
So, bridal shower. Guess we’re going to be studying the Target registry list and making a mad dash in and out of the store this week.
Those guys had better appreciate the sacrifice I’m making here.
:)
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