Shop • ping
Noun
The purchasing of goods from stores.
Goods bought from stores, esp. food and household goods.
—Oxford Dictionaries online
1. For some, shopping is an art; for others, it’s a sport. It can be a vice and it can be a cause. Some love it. Some hate it. Rarely is someone indifferent.
—PAMELA KAFFKE
Lying in bed together under the red comforter with white polka dots, a pile of pillows behind our backs, I am all wide-eyed anticipation. We snack on crackers and the chopped liver I helped chop in my great-grandmother’s wooden bowl, which would normally not be allowed in bed, but this is a special occasion. The Sunday edition of The New York Times is spread out on top of us. My grandmother finds the big spring fashion section and we peruse the pictures and discuss the latest styles. After we devour both the chopped liver and the fashion pages, we make plans to go on a shopping trip to New Jersey, where there is no sales tax. “Is Mommy going with us?” “No, not this time,” my grandmother responds. Mommy doesn’t like to go shopping, I think. I can’t imagine it. I look over to one of my grandmother’s closets filled to overflowing with a rainbow of beautiful clothes neatly organized with blouses on top and pants underneath. Boxes of shoes are stacked neatly on the floor. Her clothing has taken over both hall closets and the closet in my uncle’s former bedroom. “Can I try on the Cinderella shoes again?” I ask, referring to a pair of clear-heeled and clear-toed mules painted with gold stripes and swirls. They are the most beautiful shoes I have ever seen. “Tell me the story of the shoes again,” I command, and, as she does so, I put them on and also a glittery black dress that is way too big for me despite my grandmother’s petite size. And I feel like a princess.
2. Shopping is a woman thing. It’s a contact sport like football. Women enjoy the scrimmage, the noisy crowds, the danger of being trampled to death, and the ecstasy of the purchase.
—ERMA BOMBECK
My mother has agreed to take me shoe shopping at the mall. We enter the shopping center in a suburb of Washington, D.C., and pass by the Orange Julius and the arcade without stopping. I am like a hound on the hunt. My mom is just trying to keep up. As I approach one shoe store I glance in and don’t see anything I am interested in and we keep going. We pass Spencer’s, but that is a place to go with my friends, not my mother, so I don’t even slow down. We stop at another shoe store. I hold up a shoe and ask the sales clerk if they have a size 5. He shakes his head and says the smallest they have in that style is a 6. A little exasperated sigh escapes me. It is not easy to find shoes that I like in my size. I really hate shoe shopping. We continue the chase. I try on a pair of shoes at another store, but they are uncomfortable and I don’t like any of the other styles. My mother looks tired but is not impatient. This time we have left my father at home rather than snoozing on a J.C. Penney couch. If my mother doesn’t like to shop, my father abhors it, with a combination of loathing the actual act of shopping and detesting the thought of spending his hard-earned money on what he considers frivolities, especially when money is tight, which it always seemed to be. “Why would you want some other person’s name on your butt?” he inquired when my mother finally agreed to buy the one pair of Calvin Klein jeans that I owned. My mother asks me, “What exactly are you looking for?” “I’m not sure, but I’ll know them when I see them!” I answer. Somewhere around the fifth store, I do see them. Black, lace-up leather booties with a zigzag of black suede under the laces, across the top, and around the outside. They are perfect, so different from all the other black lace-up booties that my friends wear. I wait in jittery anticipation while the salesperson heads into the back to look for my size. When he returns with a box, like a dog that knows it is about to be let outside, I can barely sit still while I wait for him to fish them out, lace them up, and hand them over. Oh, please, let them fit. Please let them fit. I get them on and do a couple of laps around the store and then a little victory dance. They fit! My mother twists her mouth in contemplation. “Your father won’t be happy if I buy these for you.” The shoes are expensive and, as the wife of a podiatrist, she knows they are not good for my feet. I roll my eyes. I won’t be happy if she doesn’t. Finally, she reasons out loud that we might never get out of the mall if she doesn’t buy them since it is so difficult to find a pair of shoes for me that are both comfortable and fashionable. I wear them out of the store. I am ecstatic. The frustrations of the previous two hours melt away. “This is way more fun than, like, shopping for matching Garanimals, don’t you think, Mom?” She laughs despite her exhaustion. The ankle boots are so unique and so . . . me. And I can’t wait to wear them to school on Monday.
3. When I was younger, shopping helped me discover many new places and many new things.
—MIUCCIA PRADA
I stop and look around me. I can’t believe I’m in Paris, France. It’s so very much like I had imagined and nothing at all like I expected. A fleeting feeling of gratefulness to my paternal grandmother for funding this high school trip passes through me almost unnoticed. My best friend Lara, another friend we have made on the trip, and I are giddy for the chance to be let loose to shop in Paris. I have already bought the one thing my mother asked for while we were in London, so now I am free to use my spending money as I like. We stop in at a perfume shop, all glass and mirrors. Perfume in Paris! We smell everything but buy nothing because the prices are high, as one might expect in a perfume shop in Paris. We practically skip from store to store in our excitement, talking and giggling all the way. We enter a hat shop and I immediately see the perfect thing. A Parisian chapeau! It’s a pink straw hat with a thin pink ribbon around the crown, holding a little spray of pink-and-white flowers in place. I put it on. Lara says, “So cute!” And, I think, cheap enough to afford. I attempt to use my third-year language skills with the cashier, who has no patience for this silly American girl with bad French. Embarrassed, I look behind me for my best friend, whose language abilities are the only reason I am passing third-year French, but she is not there and I switch to English. I wear the hat out of the store and we continue on. There is a slight wind picking up and Lara tells me to hold onto my hat. “It’s fine,” I say. “It fits me perfectly and it’s not going anywhere.” But sure enough, and like a scene out of a version of Sex and the City for adolescents, just as we are crossing a small but busy side street, my hat flies off and is put down right in the middle of the street. I run to get it, Lara trying to catch my arm but missing. As I stoop to pick it up, a car comes out of nowhere, or so it seems, and I grab the hat and jump out of the way, narrowly escaping by only inches. My best friend is pale as I return to her and she hits me, yelling, “You are going to give me a heart attack!” “But I got my hat!” I exclaim triumphantly as I feel the buzz of adrenaline electrify my whole body. Shopping and danger, a heady combination. Still I think, Boy, that was close. The parents wouldn’t be pleased if I died in Paris. Better hold onto this hat.
4. A couple of weeks ago, I was shocked to discover a survey that said half of British women hate shopping, I don’t know how this can be. I love shopping. It’s the most relaxing, pleasurable activity I can think of.
—LINDA GRANT
The little bells on the ends of the strings tying my obligatory long skirt around my waist jingle lightly as I walk barefoot along the chaotic rows of campers, vans, and cars, scanning the wares that are being sold. It is a typically hot, humid Virginia summer day and I am glad that I decided to wear my mother’s thin, pink-and-purple-flowered, old hippie blouse. After waiting in line all morning, we finally had our concert tickets and now have time to explore. This is my first Grateful Dead experience, unfortunately about as close as I am ever going to get to what my parents experienced in the 1960s, and I can’t believe what a show there is in the parking lot before the concert. We pass what seem to be hundreds of tie-dyed T-shirts, long skirts similar to my own, jewelry, tour books, and food. Clearly there are other things being sold and bought as well. I see papers with small dots on them trading hands and catch whiffs of sweet, pungent smoke. But I am focused on the endless array of multicolored goods peeking out of all manner of colorfully decorated vehicles. I am aware that all of the items on display are being sold by Deadheads hoping to make enough money to travel on to the next show. And I am more than happy to oblige. I start with a bag of homemade trail mix. Music surrounds and follows us as we walk on. The bright hues and swirls of a vividly dyed T-shirt catch my attention and I decide to purchase it. I pull it over my other top and we continue to slowly wander. I am attracted to a small table full of friendship bracelets. My boyfriend buys the one I am eyeing and gently ties it around my wrist. Staring for a moment at the purple-and-blue converging diamond pattern, I think that I must be as happy as any new bride. I look up at him into the same blue as the bracelet and clearly see my own feelings looking back at me. Refusing to acknowledge any end to this summer when we each head off to colleges in different states, I am all smiles and sunshine even when the rain begins. My boyfriend grabs my hand and we run laughing to find cover.
5. The thing about shopping is that you never know exactly what you are going to find. A shopping experience can be filled with joyous surprises or unexpected pitfalls. No matter how hard you try, you cannot plan every detail of a shopping trip, and you never know exactly how it will end up.
—AMANDA FORD
As we stroll through the shopping arcade, shop owners call to us to come inside and take a look. Small stores filled with every sort of bric-a-brac line both sides of the walkway. Merchandise spills out onto the pavement, sitting on tables or hanging on racks, enticing buyers to stop and look. The heavy, blistering midday air of Bangkok is oppressive. I am not used to this kind of heat, coming from a cooler, rainy July in Yokohama, and I am dripping with sweat, but despite my discomfort I press on. There is so much to see. I glimpse a beautiful royal blue at the corner of my eye and turn toward it. The richly colored silk tank top almost shimmers in the heat and I am dazzled. I take it off the rack and pull it on over the thin shirt I am wearing. My husband-to-be smiles and nods his head in approval. Sold! Earlier in the week when we went to the Sunday market, we bargained with the merchants because it was expected, but I’m not very good at it and my heart isn’t in it. For me, the sport of shopping is in finding a good deal, not in making one. I don’t know if this is the type of place where you can bargain over price, but I don’t even attempt it. What’s the point in haggling over a couple of dollars when that extra money means so much more to them than to me? We continue our leisurely pace along the storefronts. I pause occasionally to take a closer look at something—a pretty raw silk skirt, a silver necklace, a celadon mug. I am disappointed that the graceful wood carving of some Asian goddess that I instantly fall in love with is too expensive. I pout as we walk on. Then I stop suddenly with a sharp intake of breath. “What’s wrong?” Terry asks, looking concerned. I don’t answer him but run toward a small table with a turning jewelry display and pluck off a pair of earrings. They are thin brass and each one has been shaped into a spiral. He looks at me quizzically. I explain that I had bought a pair exactly like these in a night market in Thailand a few years before, when I was on a break from teaching English in Taiwan, but had sadly lost one. What luck! “We’re going to have a great trip,” I say to him.
6. Shopping involves more than just economic considerations like the relationship between material quality and price. There are social, ethical, and political issues embedded in shopping decisions as well. Yet most of us do not give a lot of conscious thought to what can be called the politics of a product.
—MICHELE MICHELETTI
We have arrived in Houston, but our luggage hasn’t. I am practically in tears. My brother’s wedding is in two days. The airline assures us they will find our bags and get them to us before then, but right now we have none of our things. We head on to Galveston anyway. Once we arrive and check into the hotel, I call my brother. “Looks like we need to do a little shopping,” I say, trying not to sound too upset because he probably has enough to deal with. “Well, the only place to do that around here is Walmart,” he responds. “Walmart?!” I half scream into the phone. “There isn’t even a Target or a K-Mart? What kind of place is this?” “Sorry,” he says. I can’t remember the last time I stepped into a Walmart. The “Evil Empire” is what we call it. But at this point we are desperate. My three-year-old daughter is already clamoring to go to the beach and we have no swimsuit, not to mention clean underwear or children’s toothpaste. “We are only going to buy what we absolutely have to and not one thing more,” I command as we head into the superstore. Unless pressured by time or children, I am not one to rush through even the most mundane shopping trip, preferring to explore the shelves or racks for any new goodies or sales that may have appeared since my last visit. But today we zoom through the aisles, grabbing what we need as quickly as we can. The place is overwhelming and I feel nauseated. On the way to the checkout line, my daughter sees a huge tower of fenced-in beach balls. Her eyes get wide and she runs for them. I yell, “NO, NO, NO!” But she grabs a hold of one and wraps her small, chubby arms around it before I can get to her. “PLEEEASE, Mama. PLEEEASE!” “No, no,” I say again. But it has been a long trip from Indiana and she is tired and grumpy and my daughter is not ever easily swayed. I am tired and grumpy, too. I stand there weighing my options. We are careful with our money, but not in the same fashion as my parents, or at least I do not think so. Perhaps my children will. I like to think that I stick to my one guiding principle, “Everything in moderation,” which I say over and over to my daughter as we walk through stores filled with every imaginable child fantasy and go to birthday parties where there are enough sweets to give an elephant a sugar rush. I feel my mouth twisting just as my mother’s did. I make a quick mental list:
Reasons Not to Buy the Ball
1. She doesn’t need the ball.
2. She can’t have everything she wants.
3. I don’t want to give the Evil Empire any more of my money than I absolutely have to.
4. I don’t want to give the Evil Empire the satisfaction of falling prey to their marketing scheme of placing the balls directly in front of the checkout lines where all children will see and run for them.
Reasons to Buy the Ball
1. The ball will keep her occupied for hours and we don’t have any other toys except for those we brought on the plane.
2. The ball is cheap and will not add much to the Evil Empire’s empire.
3. We will be able to leave the Evil Empire much more quickly and without incident if we buy the ball.
4. We are all tired and grumpy.
And just like my mother, I relent. My daughter is all light and laughter now and I can’t help but smile, a guilty little smile, too.
7. When women are depressed, they eat or go shopping. Men invade another country. It’s a whole different way of thinking.
—ELAYNE BOOSLER
I go to the bathroom and cry while I sit on the toilet. I am exhausted and overwhelmed. I don’t want to be here. I want to go home to Bloomington, Indiana. It is cold here and I don’t have any friends. My nine-month-old son is movement personified. My four-year-old daughter is still getting used to five full days of school at her new Montessori preschool and comes home impossible to deal with every day. My husband spends hours working on the coursework for all his classes because this is his first real position as a professor. And I am left trying to do most of the unpacking myself. After three months here, I am not getting very far. I come out of the bathroom, no longer crying, but my red eyes and nose give me away. My husband looks up from his work and knits his brows. “I think you need a break,” he states matter-of-factly. I sigh and say that I know he has to get this work done. “I think it’s more important that you get a little break,” he responds, “and a couple of hours won’t make a difference.” “Well, okay,” I answer hesitantly. I grab my coat and purse and walk toward the door, looking back for reassurance. He waves. I get in the car, shivering, turn the heat up full blast and head for the thrift store that I still haven’t gotten the chance to check out. I find the store, relieved that I didn’t get lost on the way, and make my way inside. I pass the clothing section and find a room with what looks like their prime merchandise, where I glance around for something Japanese that my new Japanese-history-professor husband might like for Christmas. Not seeing anything, I walk through the doorway at the other side of the room, continue by the shelves filled with kitchen gadgets and dishes, and turn right. Eventually I come to the children’s area, where a disorganized jumble of games and toys stock the shelves. Aha! Cute little purses for almost nothing. Deliberating between a sparkly red purse and a little white purse decorated with purple flowers, I finally choose one. I also snap up another baby toy that has lights and makes noises and that will keep my son occupied in the car. My body starts to relax and I can feel myself growing calmer, the focus on the task at hand leaving no room for the stress and worries of home. I trace my steps back toward the kitchenware and spy the bookshelves beyond. Books! I can easily spend hours anywhere there are books. And now I have the luxury to look uninterrupted. I peruse the shelves and pull out anything I might be interested in, making a nice stack on top of the little table beside me. Hmmm. I’m sure I don’t need all of these. I go through the pile, read several of the backs and dust jackets, and return some of the books to the empty spaces I have left. Then I move on to the children’s books, going through the same routine: taking books from the shelves, looking through them, putting some back. Just as I am about finished, I see a familiar-looking spine. I pull the book out and realize it is one that I read as a child, and, by the looks of it, the very same edition. The Secret Garden! I hadn’t thought of the book in years, but, holding it in my hand, I remember how much I loved it. And it smells deliciously of old book. Score! My find of the day! Just the thing I didn’t know I needed. I will write something in the cover and give it to my daughter for Chanukah. I pay for the items in my cart and drive home. When I walk in the door, my daughter runs for me and encircles my waist. My husband turns to welcome me, my son in his arms. He sees the bag I am carrying, frowns a not-so-serious frown, and shaking his head says, “I don’t get it, but you look much happier.” And I am, at least for the moment.
8. Whoever said money can’t buy happiness simply didn’t know where to go shopping.
—BO DEREK
My two-year-old son is standing in front of me with his belly hanging out of a shirt that has grown way too small, way too fast. “Time to go shopping,” I sing. I push him out the door and strap him into his car seat. We arrive at the children’s resale shop and I shield his view of the neighboring bakery, knowing that if he sees it, I’ll never get him inside. I let him loose in the small store and cross my fingers, hoping that he doesn’t crash into or break anything as I head toward the racks of boys’ size 3 clothing. I search through the small clothes, my hands on automatic pilot, stopping momentarily only when I see the right color, price, and style. It’s a good day and I am quickly holding a good-size pile of little boys’ clothes. I head back over to the toy area, but my son is not there. In a slight panic, I search around for him and finally find him by the shoes. He has taken off his sneakers and is working hard to get his feet into a pair of sparkly pink Mary Janes. I find a pair of boys’ shoes in his size and attempt a trade, but he screams, pulls the Mary Janes away from me, and goes back to work. “Don’t you want these cool shoes?” I ask, holding them out for his inspection. “They have red on them and you love red.” He shakes his head. “How about these cowboy boots?” He shakes his head again. “You really like those shoes, huh?” He nods. “Let me see what size they are.” He hands one to me and I check inside. They are a size too big for him. “Hmmm. A little big.” He grabs the shoe and pushes his foot into it. I sigh and bend down to help him put the shoe on. Well, I reason to myself, maybe if I let him wear them for a little while, he’ll be done with them when it’s time to go. So I head to the girls’ size 5 clothing. Although my daughter is seven, she unfortunately, I think as I head to the right rack, takes after her mom. When I am done there, I check on my son, who is happily playing with a big truck. After purchasing the clothing, I go back to collect my son. “Okay. Time to go. Let’s get your shoes back on.” But when I reach out to take the sparkly shoes off, he again lets out that god-awful siren wail. “Let me see how much they cost,” I coax. I turn the shoe with his foot in it over in my hand. $3.99. I remember how I felt in my grandmother’s mules. I could imagine a whole world in those shoes with me at its center. Then I picture my daughter, not so long ago, clomping around the house in the same shoes, necklaces draped around her neck, and my pink French hat on her head, talking to her pretend cats, Chocolate and Vanilla, about all the places they will go and all the things they will see. Well, why should he be any different? I pull the price tag off, let his foot go, and return to the cashier to pay for the shoes. We go to the bakery in the sparkly pink shoes. We go pick up his sister in the sparkly pink shoes. He sleeps in the sparkly pink shoes. He wears the pink sparkly shoes for two more days. On the third day he picks up his sister’s sparkly red purse and we go to playgroup in the sparkly pink shoes and with the sparkly red purse. “Thank goodness we live in Ann Arbor,” I mutter to myself as we enter the house. My playgroup mommy friends are, as I expected, amused and very understanding. “If he feels like a princess or whatever in these shoes,” I laugh, “far be it from me to take that away from him.”
9. Shopping: chore, sport, hobby, meditation, therapy, obsession; done alone, as a group effort or romantic activity; frustrating or fun, boring or exhilarating; accomplished thoughtfully or carelessly; to find yourself, lose yourself, or see yourself through someone else’s eyes; it might be all about you or somebody you love. It has at one time or another been all of these things to me. But when a shopping trip becomes a story, it is perfection, and what I most love about shopping is that you never know when that will occur.
My husband and I are sorting through the endless boxes of stuff we have accumulated in hopes of clearing a space in the basement to turn into a teenage hangout. It feels cathartic to make a small mountain of things to give away. But now I find myself lingering over the bins filled with children’s clothes. Which to put back into the bin as keepsakes and which to pass forward? I remember them wearing almost every one of these pieces of clothing. I remember buying most of them, too. I reminisce over my joy at purchasing the purple-and-yellow-striped Hannah Anderson outfit I bought for my first child’s homecoming from the hospital and I recollect spying the light blue crocheted sweater at a yard sale. I recall agonizing over which adorable baby kimono to buy in Tokyo to be worn for the yearly holiday cards and I laugh when I come across the cheap sneakers we had to buy my son at a small-town five-and-dime because somehow we had forgotten to make sure he was wearing shoes when we left our house. I see the red glittery purse I bought for my daughter at the thrift store that day I was at my wit’s end and the lovely dress my daughter almost didn’t get to wear to my brother’s wedding. And then I spot the pink sparkly shoes and tears spring to my eyes. I don’t know why it is these shoes that finally get the waterworks flowing, but I am back in the resale shop, and my son is a toddler again. I can smell his little boy toddler scent and see the determination in his sweet brown puppy dog eyes. It was just a normal everyday shopping trip to purchase needed goods from a store and the shoes bought that day were just one sundry item among many in a bin. I did not buy my first car or my prom dress, my wedding dress or our house, or even that first baby outfit that day. But these little stories that wrap themselves around the odds and ends of our life like layers of tissue paper are what become the artifacts of our existence. If my son tells this story to his children, they will want to see the pink sparkly shoes and maybe even try them on, I think. Or perhaps it will be the opposite. They will see the pink sparkly shoes in the box full of dress-up clothes and want to know their story. I place the Mary Janes on the same “to-keep” shelf as my grandmother’s mules. When I remove my hands, they are covered with sparkles.