The Joy of Shopping

I was browsing through a heap of paperbacks in a bookshop at the mall, and found a small 20-page booklet of tips on how to lose weight, make money and live happily ever after. It also has suggestions on how to stay within a budget when shopping; ideas that are quite sensible, although not totally practicable — to shop alone, stick to list and not to shop for food when one is hungry.

The only one I accept of those is the advice to shop alone; the other two were so hard to follow. Frequently, it’s when you see the attractive display of food that you become hungry. And a shopping list of necessities prepared beforehand is always incomplete; many items suddenly look necessary the moment you see them on the store shelves.

I like to shop alone; I don’t want to move through a store having to keep pace with anyone. If a certain section doesn’t interest me, I skip that section. I don’t want to stand around staring at detergents while waiting for someone who’s turned on by detergents.

Overall, however, to suggest of applying stringent discipline into the act of shopping is failing to consider the fact that shopping is the greatest form of recreation for many people. It is more preferable to watching television or going to the movies. Shopping usually involves physical exercise and mental exercise as well, since the shopper is in a constant process of making decisions.

Some of the easiest, cheapest fun I have is shopping. Easiest because they don’t require you to present identification documents when you enter a store. And cheapest because you don’t even have to buy anything to enjoy the experience (as in mere window shopping).

Who among us go to a store with a single purpose of getting enough food to prevent us from starving to death? In fact, it’s often the unnecessary but nice stuff that gets into our shopping carts first. The very things that we came to the store for often occur to us only as last thoughts as we approach the checkout counter.

On weekends I usually do some housekeeping chores at home. As soon as hunting for cobwebs begins to bore me, I decide to take a break. Going to the mall is usually the first thought that comes to my mind.

The other weekend I went to the mall four different times. None of those trips was for any significant or urgent purpose; in fact, it wouldn’t have mattered if I didn’t go at all. I went twice to the supermarket, twice to the hardware store. It was also during those trips that I found the booklet of tips.

At the supermarket, I bought several bags of fish crackers (the big ones), a pint of ice cream and a bottle of cooking oil. And, yes, a 4-piece pack of penlight batteries, just because it was handy to pick at the cashier’s counter. As you sure know, such things were hardly critical to my survival, but it was fun going around collecting them.

As much as I enjoy shopping for food, it doesn’t compare with the pleasure I get from going to the hardware store. I think tools and gadgets account for over one-third of the things just lying idle around in the house. These are mostly items I acquire more for the pleasure of acquisition than for actual need.

It may sound as if I’m some big shot kid with a lot of money to spend. But, truth is, I spend less and get more pleasure out of these little recreational shopping. It’s nothing compared to what most women spend on cosmetics or some young men spend on computer games, hair gels and adult DVDs.

The biggest kick I get from my hardware collection is looking at what I paid for the items last year and the years before and what they cost today. The electrical extension hub with three extra outlets and its own circuit breaker that I bought three years ago is still in its original package; it has not been opened and the price sticker is still there – P95.00. The exact same item costs P199.75 today, at the same store!

Okay, it’s still a crazy idea to buy things you don’t need. But the mere fact that the market value of your collection has doubled through the years makes you feel so good. It adds up to the good feelings you had when buying those things in the first place.

And come to think of it: If, on my own, I had the wisdom to “make a shopping list and stick to it”, as what the booklet of tips says – would I even have thought of passing by the bookshop and bothered to spend time digging the heap of bargain paperbacks? Would I have ever found that booklet at all?

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