WHY I HATE SHOPPING

I. Hate. Shopping.

Shopping is an enormous time-suck. Driving to the store, driving home from the store, looking around the store, and, the truest of all time-sucks, waiting in line. I will starve myself before going to the grocery store. 

I find very little more frustrating than going to a store with on-line confirmation of stock only to discover that the store does not really have what I am looking for, despite their insistence otherwise.  If the computer says that the store has "ten items in stock," then there should be at least one somewhere on the shelves, in the "to be re-shelved" pile, or out in the back waiting to be stocked in the first place. 

Remember Service Merchandise? This was the first self-serve store: Pick items from an onsite catalogue or computer list, go wait by the mini roller coaster, and grab your order as it came out from the backroom in a plastic bin that resembled a coal miner's cart. Best store ever, and zero inventory loss to theft.

The main reason that I despise shopping is the people. 

Recently, my friends and I decide to brave the crowds at a busy grocery store. Usually, this isn't a problem, but the aisles in this particular store seem tighter than necessary for a place with such high volume. There is a lot of pushing, of shoving, and an alarming number of people just stopping in the middle with their carts so that no one else can move. Most of the people are idiots, but, for those few moments of knowing glances with other like-minded shoppers, the entire debacle becomes worth every painful moment.

Me (to myself): This feels like a full-contact sport.

Woman (shopping nearby): And it's like this all the time. All the time. 

We laugh, and, as she turns a corner, she runs right into another shopper.

Not even two aisles later, an elderly man with a completely empty cart (despite being in the middle aisle of the store amidst hundreds of us with semi-full carriages), stops dead in the middle, blocking anyone trying to travel north or south through the baking supplies. I try, I truly do try, to hold my face in neutral, and I feel like I'm doing a bang-up job of it. That is, until I glance past the old guy and see a man about my age blocked from coming the other direction. He catches my expression and busts out a huge bark of laughter. 

"Oh," I say as we finally maneuver through the bottleneck and pass each other, "was my face too loud back there?"

The final coup de grace happens at the check-out. A couple gets in line behind me. The woman says, "We could maybe sneak through the express aisle."

I respond, "I don't have much stuff." Then I smirk. "Trust me. With the day I'm having, this is sure to be entertaining."

The two girls running this particular register and bagging station are not the brightest bulbs in the store's chandelier. I ask for my groceries to be packed into the heavier, ten-cent bags. You see, I'm not going straight home, so I want the stuff in bags that will hold up for the long ride. The cashier looks at me blankly, reaches over, grabs a huge section of the container, and hands me six or seven empty bags. Then, she just stands there. 

"Uhhhhh, no. For bagging. My groceries."

Both girls stare at me as I push the bags back toward them. No one says a word. No one moves. We are standing in a tableau of stupidity.

Finally, I make huge gestures with my arms and hands, sweeping from the left to the right, as I say, "Just riiiiiiiiiiiiing my stuff through and send it dooooooooooooooooown to the bottom and paaaaaaaaaaaaaack everything in those big plastic baaaaaaaaaaaaaags." 

Still, nothing. I spot my friends in the next checkout aisle, clearly not having the same problem. I turn to the couple behind me. "I told you that you wouldn't be disappointed!" Them, to the cashier, I say, "Go! Ring! Let's get these puppies home!"

This. All this. This is why I hate shopping.