Shop 'Til I Drop

After reading this post from the blog "She Just Had to Say It", I had to reflect on my own shopping habits. Unlike Soliloquoy, I love to shop. Grocery shopping, gift shopping, clothing shopping... you name it. If I have to buy it, I love shopping for it.

However, times have changed, and so has my shopping. First of all, I used to go shopping with my mom and my sisters every Saturday. We'd go to our favorite mall, linger in and out of stores, and chit-chatted while we browsed the racks. We would spend hours trying on clothes, make-up, shoes, and accessories. Often we'd throw in a mani-pedi into the day, and we'd always go out to lunch in the process.

Since then, I've moved out of state from my mom and my sisters. And I rarely go shopping for myself. Who has the time or money? Now I have to buy kids' clothes, school supplies, and groceries. Add in the upcoming birth of the baby, and you add in diapers, formula, burp cloths, and baby supplies.

And gone are the days of the mani-pedi. Instead, I have Play-Doh in my fingernails and my toes are hidden in sneakers.

If on the rare occasion I have the opportunity to shop for myself (due to the occasional much-appreciated gift card for my birthday), I have to sneak it in between school drop-off and pick-up times. With travel time and parking, that gives me maybe an hour of free time all to myself to grab as much as I can and frantically search for things that I like. Or, the alternative (which is a lot more frightening), is that I have to take one (or both -- SHUDDER) of the kids with me.

So forget about trying things on. Whether the kids are with me or not, I don't have time to use the dressing room. If the kids are with me, the boredom hits, and the whining and complaining starts. If I'm not shopping for them, they soon lose interest, and I'm a dead woman. But even if I'm by myself, I don't have the time or energy to try on clothes. So, either way, what I end up doing is grabbing as much as I can, buying it, and taking it home to try on. Then I can return anything that doesn't fit me or that I don't like.

This creates a ... let's say... "interesting" or "lively" discussion with Hubby. He grabs the receipt, shouts out the total dollar amount in disbelief, and then asks, "Do you really need four black sweaters?!" To which I have to (again) explain my shopping strategy, as well as my possible need for four black sweaters (one heavy one for Winter, one light one for Spring, one button down, one pullover...) To which Hubby reminds me that he is not made of money and that I have plenty of clothes to wear. And didn't I just go shopping within the last decade?

In the end, about 95% of the things I buy are taken back to the store, with a polite, embarrassed smile from me and a wincing sneer from the cashier, as she credits back my debit card with almost the full amount.

Unless they tell me I can only get store credit. In that case, I start looking around the store again...