Groceries.

I absolutely hate all types of shopping, but one.
Perhaps especially, I hate shopping for clothes. When attempting to add to my illustrious wardrobe, I am immediately confronted with two opposing facts:
Clothes are too expensive.
And I am too poor.
Shopping for a car? I need professional counseling, before and after.
Home furnishings of any sort? I sprout gray hairs!
RETAIL and I are NOT involved in a win-win relationship right now.
I hate buying stuff. For instance, I am in the mega-bookstore right now, drinking coffee, and I have zero intention of buying anything. Especially when I can sort of take it off the shelf and read it for quite a while without having to buy it.
So.... I have just been having a look at this book called Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping. It’s by Paco Underhill, really a wonderful book. Seriously, you should go buy it.
But I’ve just been sitting here reading chapter Eight, for free. The chapter is called Shop Like A Man.... and wow! In so many ways, it’s got me pegged.
He says “The conventional wisdom on male shoppers is that they don’t especially like to do it, which is why they don’t do much of it.”
He goes on to describe how the shopping experience is, from package design to advertising to merchandising to store design and fixturing “geared toward the female shopper.”
Says Underhill, “When a man takes clothing into a dressing room, the only thing that stops him from buying it is if it doesn’t fit. Women, on the other hand, try things on as only part of the consideration process, and garments that fit just fine may still be rejected on other grounds.”
Further, “Eighty-six percent of women look at price tags when they shop. Only 72 percent of men do.”
[I am definitly one of that 72 percentile group!]
I don’t like shopping. Really for anything. Except..... except.... well hold that thought for a bit.
Underhill goes on to explain that computer stores have replaced the stereo-shop and car lots of yesteryear, as the place where men are most likely to not mind browsing for a considerable amount of time. In fact, he says that if he were to open a computer store, he would try to locate it next to a women’s clothing shop, so that while the women are trying on sixty-seven outfits, their bored-out-of-their-mind male counterparts would gravitate towards his store.
I agree with him. A computer store is one place I could find myself lost in. [Does that even make sense?]
OK... now to the heart of the matter.... what is the one area of shopping that actually appeals to me? I can answer that, without the slightest hesitation.

Groceries.
Food.
I love eating.

I turn back to the Underhill book, where he says: “The great traditional arena for male shopping behavior has always been the supermarket. It’s here, with thousands of products all within easy reach, that you can witness the carefree abandon and restless lack of discipline for which the gender is known. In one supermarket study, we counted how many shoppers came armed with lists. Almost all of the women had them. Less than a quarter of the men did. Any wife who’s watching the family budget knows better than to send her husband to the supermarket unchaperoned. Giving him a vehicle to commandeer, even if it’s just a shopping cart, only emphasizes the potential for guyness in the experience.”

I so very much agree with everything he is saying here. The wonderful lack of discipline. With the swish of those self-opening doors I feel like I am walking through the main portal of the Starship Enterprise. And I swear, from that grand entrance onward, I am a zombie... arms outstretched, just knocking stuff off the shelves and into the cart. I don’t know if it’s just me or what, but I even hear music while in this trance, it’s like being in a food-lined elevator!
I love the whole experience of it, and I’m not kidding. When I am feeling a bit low, I go to the supermarket. The Gap and J. Crew be damned! My pants can have holes in them... but I want fresh bread! I want that leaky kind of honey, and Omega-3 eggs! I want pre-severed chicken parts... and coffee creamer with an expiry date well into next month!
At the supermarket, I want it all. And even though I know I am being swindled here just like anywhere, I honestly do not mind checkout time. I never begrudge that bill that has my credit card cringing in disgust.
And I usually enjoy the cashier-to-client banter that goes on, while the swindling is in gear.
Just the other evening, however, while the customer ahead of me was paying the piper, I was placing all of my carefully selected zombie-items on the black rubber conveyor belt.....
A clear bag containing two baking potatoes, the smaller size tub of margarine, three apples, three frozen TV-dinners, one bar of soap, one can of spaghetti sauce, can-opener, package of four chicken thighs, small tube of toothpaste, a half-dozen eggs, fourteen boxes of macaroni & cheese, monster-size bag of Bar-B-Q potato chips, Betty Crocker Tuna-Helper mix, and a can of tuna.
As the cashier now turns to me and begins to ring this through, she says “So. You’re a bachelor then?”
I said to her, “That is really remarkable. You can tell that by my purchases here?”
“No, not really” she replied. “I can tell that because you’re so ugly.”

I have to admit. This was not one of the better experiences I have had at the supermarket, but still.... it was more fun than having to go buy clothes!