A Random Shopping Rant

Have I mentioned before that I'm not a big fan of shopping? Like most things in my life, I have to be in the mood to shop for anything: groceries, clothes, laundry soap... doesn't matter what it is, shopping is just not something I look forward to doing.

I thought today would be a good time to search for a few Christmas items. The kids had an early release day from school, I needed a break from the house, and we got an unexpected check in the mail. By the way, when does that ever happen? Not birthday money or one of those "cash now, pay high interest later" checks, but a real refund-because-of-an-overpayment check that came from the oral surgeon (of all places) that pulled Nick's wisdom teeth back in August. Not a lot, but enough to have a little bit of fun with. So like I was saying, I thought today would be a good shopping day.

Boy, was I ever wrong.

We went to one place, a Christian book store, and by the time I came out of there I had to sit for a few moments while I slowly counted to a hundred in my head. I began to think of medication. Don't they make a pill for this? I booted one kid to the back seat and threatened to use an eject button on the other one. This was not the pleasant afternoon that I had in mind. To try to sum up the hour in which I ended up buying nothing for Christmas, it went sort of like this:

1. The sale items I was looking for (from a catalog I received in the mail today) were not actually on sale until this Friday. I figured that out after I read the fine print.
2. One of the clerks was talking non-stop (and very loudly) about her personal female troubles, if you get my drift. When she got started on her current method of birth control, I found myself embarrassed to be standing by my teenage son.
3. No matter what aisle I wandered down or what corner I turned, I kept running into the same two people. And as luck would have it, everything I wanted to look, they beat me to it. Evidently one was translating for the other because everything (and I do mean everything) had to be read aloud in something other than English. Needless to say, why this might have been necessary, it was also very time consuming.
4. When the time came to pay for the few items the kids picked out, a t-shirt did not have a tag. It took three clerks to consult another clerk who then consulted a computer way in the back. We were asked to step aside.  Meanwhile Nick found an identical shirt that did have a tag, but was in a different size. Although I tried to explain this, we still had to wait on the clerk with our shirt who was still way in the back. When he finally appeared, he gave me a price that was a dollar higher than the one on the shirt with the tag. I asked why the different price. He said different sizes. I pointed out that our shirt was a small while the one with the tag was a large. He shrugged his shoulders and told the girl to ring up the higher price. At this point I am debating how important that dollar is. And thinking about where I am at. And looking at my kids who are watching me. And wondering why I ever thought that this would be a good shopping day.

Well, I did pay the extra dollar because quite frankly, I just needed to get out of there. We managed to make our way toward home without any horn-blowing incidents on the interstate (a common occurrence when I'm behind the wheel) and after a quick run through the grocery store (because the mood to shop was long gone), home never looked so good.

That kid of mine better enjoy his t-shirt.