A writing buddy and I were talking the other day, and I discovered a wonderful thing about her—she’s as shopping-impaired as I am. I’ve known her for years, and yet I didn’t know this. We feel like oddities in a world of shopaholics. While other woman can’t wait to go to the mall, she and I postpone shopping trips until we absolutely can’t stand wearing the same clothes for, um, sometimes 6 years.
Usually, the only time I do any major clothes shopping is right before a conference. Once I start the shopping, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy it. It’s just finding the motivation to hit the stores that’s so damn hard.
What hit this home to me is that I’ve been meaning to go clothes-shopping since around, oh, January. I was running out of jeans. Well, eventually, the weather caught up to me, and now it doesn’t matter. I don’t need jeans. I need shorts and skorts. The zippers on two skorts I bought for a trip to NYC with My Liege before the last NYC RWA conference finally gave out! What? Those skorts were only 6 years old! They still fit. They were in great shape. WTF? Then, two days later, the sash tie on a favorite pair of shorts split apart as I was tying it. Now I’m down 3 pairs of shorts/skorts. I must go shopping.
My birthday is in January, and my parents winter down south, so I usually get money that the Little Pisser is very good about hiding from me until my birthday. When I opened the card this year, I knew exactly what I wanted to buy with my birthday money—a new purse. I’m addicted to Derek Alexander purses. They’re excellent quality, easily last for two years, and help keep me organized. So I finally bought my new purse, um, at the end of May, 4.5 months past my birthday. I’m still meaning to put leftover birthday money from my in-laws toward a new camera bag. Yeah, that might happen sometime in the next two centuries. Unless I break down and order one on-line. On-line shopping, I could get into.
As a kid, my older sister and a good friend and I used to go shopping sometimes on Saturdays. It was a great expedition. For them. They’d try on dozens of clothes while I sat in a chair reading comics or begging them To. Please. Stop.
So, I thought I’d do a survey. Are my friend and I the odd women out? Do you love to shop, or do you dread it? Do you dread it until you get there, and then you go crazy (this does happen to me from time to time)? Or do you just dread it period?