Relative Something

I belong to that subset of humanity that has little in the way of an internal drive for buying new things. When December arrives and the holiday shopping craze begins, my ambient level of typical day-to-day stress automatically takes a step up. I sense that I am expected to become one of the cogs in the retail juggernaut.

It was during last year’s shopping season that I had an insight about the role I inadvertently play in messing up the whole process. Not only does business go up for retail locations, but it is going up because of a large number of people like me who don’t regularly shop. There should be no surprise that it becomes a spectacle of awkward inefficiencies. I can’t even decide where I want to park, and I notice that most of the other cars in the lots appear to be having the same problem. I don’t know where the store in the mall is located. I end up walking a lot more of the mall than is necessary. I don’t know the layout of the stores. I’m up and down aisles and back and forth across the store. I don’t understand the new checkout routines. Where is the queue? Do I swipe my own card? Do I need to sign something? The whole time, I’m bumping elbows with others having the same problems, as well as stutter-stepping left and right in the face of some poor person who already knows how this is all supposed to go, but is unable to properly execute with all these unskilled shoppers bungling the process.

At the same time, I have been asked to create a wish-list to assist others in finding the perfect gift for me. I didn’t realize the exercise would suffer for similar reasons as my difficulties with shopping. Since I don’t buy a lot of things, what I already have tends to get well used and might charitably be described as threadbare. I’m the kind of person that becomes attached with a product when I find something that works well for me. What I want on my wish-list is often an exact replacement for something I already love. I discovered over the weekend that much of what I wanted to put on my list is nowhere to be found. Brand name stuff, but not even showing up on the clearance rack. It’s a hard reality to discover you are outliving your favorite merchandise.

I can’t let it get to me, though. I just gotta pull myself up and get out there and shop! I just learned that the more I spend, the more I can save! Why didn’t I discover this sooner? Think of the savings I have missed over the years.