We Need to Talk About Shopping

I don't hate Smiggle though.
Seriously, why was this shop not around when
I was growing up? Why?!!!
Disclaimer: Not a sponsored picture. I have
never had any contact with the peeps at Smiggle
beyond going to in the shop and trying not to
Buy All The Things!

Apparently there's a US presidential election about to happen in the northern hemisphere that's apparently pretty important. I like to talk about the big things on this blog, so in keeping with the theme, I'm going to talk about shopping. 

I mentioned in my rambling post of last week, you know, the one with no point, where I talk about my hatred for Thursday's and the fuck-wit who sued his wife because they had an ugly baby? You don't know? Well hop on over and read it. Then come back here. I'll wait...

...you done? Ok, good. So anyway, in that post I mentioned that the only thing I didn't like about the weekend was having to do the grocery shopping, and I thought "I should write a post about that." Now I know you lot hang on my every word and anything I have to say about shopping must be epic, right? Maybe not. But here's a rant about shopping anyway...

Shopping. I was never much of a fan of shopping, never one of those people that could spend hours walking around and looking in every store, it's never really interested me.

I find clothes shopping in particular to be a (an?) a horrendous ordeal, mostly because I'm a different bloody size in every shop I go to. Seriously, is it that fucking hard to get some standardised sizing going on?!?!

Shopping on a Saturday or Sunday can be a bit of a nightmare. Every Tom, Dick and Harry are at the shops, spending their cash and walking so freaking slow. There will be 4 in a group, and they spread right across the aisle and walk as slow as humanly possible, taking with them any opportunity of getting around them, not to mention my last shreds of sanity.

What is wrong with those people? Honestly, it might be Sunday but that doesn't mean you have to walk like it is. A quick shops a good shop. That should be everyones motto on a weekend!

And for some reason, when the weather is beautiful outside, even more people go to the shops. When I worked in bookshops some of our busiest days were the days when it was the most beautiful weather. What is with that? If it's nice outside I want to be out strolling along the river or (insert other nice outdoor place here), not strolling along the aisles of the local Westfield.

And don't even get me started on Thursday night shopping. Back before the munchkin, when I was working full-time, Thursday night was one of the only times I could go shopping and I seriously hated it! Walking in to Penrith Plaza on a Thursday night was like walking on to the set of a porn flick, there were more clothes in the shops than on the shoppers. And sadly, those scantily-clad shoppers were 9 times out of 10 under the age of 16.

I don't know the answer to stopping young girls from walking out of the house looking like they are about to start work on the corner, but I wore more clothes than that when I used to go clubbing at 18-20 years of age and that's saying something, considering it was the early noughties and backless, midriff baring was all the rage!

To be honest though, I have found, since the munchkin came along, that I enjoy shopping slightly more than I did before. But only on a weekday, before school finishes. And only for two reasons.

The first reason is that I love buying stuff for Punky. Clothes, toys, doesn't matter, I could spend all of my money and then some just buying shit we don't need for her. Mostly because buying her clothes is easy and I have always wanted to buy ALL the toys!

The other reason is of course when I get to leave said munchkin at home and go shopping by myself! Is there anything more blissful when you're a parent? Ok, maybe going to the toilet by yourself, or doing anything by yourself for that matter can be pretty blissful, but for me, I just find shopping by myself to be a bit of a drug. The more I do it the more I want to do it! Need to do it! Anyone else feel like that?

The one kind of shopping I still don't like, at any time on any day of the week, is grocery shopping. I remember when we first moved in to our own place, grocery shopping was awesome! We could buy whatever we wanted, eat whatever we wanted, and do it whenever we wanted because we now only lived 5 mins from the shops, rather than 25 mins.

Word.

We also may or may not have indulged in a few sessions of 'sessions' (or as How I Met Your Mother calls it, eating sandwiches), which made it even more fun to go do some grocery shopping and buy ALL the lollies!

But as the years went on and our 'sandwich eating' days came to an end, grocery shopping just became a chore. A major pain-in-the-arse chore. Don't get me wrong, it's still better than scrubbing the shower and washing the kitchen floor, but only just!

Trying to figure out what the bloody hell to have for dinner every night, and then making sure we have all of the ingredients is the most bat-shit boring, majorly irrates-inducing task of the week. I absolutely hate it and freely admit to trying to get out of it as often as possible, with the flimsiest excuses known to man.

When Punky was newly born and breastfeeding every 2 minutes I had the best excuse ever. Now that we are down to one feed a day its getting harder and harder to come up with excuses that Dave will accept for me not accompanying him on the weekly grocery shop. I pride myself on being a world-class excuse maker but I am seriously running low on viable ideas.

So tell me, what annoys you the most about shopping? Or are you one of those people that loves it, no matter what, when and where? And have you got any sweet excuses I can use to get out of further grocery shopping? Credit will not be given. Sorry.

As always I am linking this post up for the most essential of essential link-up's, IBOT. And it's run by the equally essential Jess, from none other than the most essential blog on the web, Essentially Jess (the artist formerly known as Diary of a SAHM). If you haven't checked out Jess' awesome new-look blog then I suggest you do. It's my essential reading!

P.S. Next week I will try my hardest not write something other than a rant for IBOT. I promise I'll try!