"Shhh" For Shopping!!

I hate shopping. And for a self-proclaimed shopping hater, I spend more time doing that than anything else! Every summer, my sister comes to visit. My sister LOVES shopping, and she believes it is the best hang-out pastime there is. She would probably have been right if it were with someone else! My summer vacations - on the rare occasions that I had that, or at least had it at the same time as my sister’s – were always spent going from shop to shop and from mall to mall. I would spend hours shopping and usually go home with nothing. I do love getting new things and new clothes, though, but it is the process of getting them that I hate.

I hate haggling the salespeople to reduce the price especially that I’m really bad at it. I don’t like trying on 10 different things, and find only one that fits and looks nice at the same time- which seems to be mutually exclusive nowadays- and sometimes find neither. I don’t like feeling I’m old-fashioned when I ask about a specific style I like and the teenage assistant there looks at me like I’m a hundred years old. And, I don’t like going back home with tired feet, a sore back, and a stomachache from changing many times under the conditioner (which is for no obvious reason always directed exactly on the changing rooms I happen to use!). On top of all, I hate how smaller sizes get each freaking season. I know I didn’t gain weight - I keep track of that, and it wouldn’t bother me much if it was true. But I hate the pseudo feeling of gaining weight only because someone decided to shrink sizes. Small is medium, medium is large, and large is XL! And that’s the new trend.

But every year, I look forward to that I hate doing – that useful waste of time called shopping. I spend a lot of time with my sister, and we always go to have a drink or something to eat afterwards. That is the part I look forward to the most when I go shopping. I always tell her that I refrain from buying anything during the year just to have the chance to go buy it with her, but I don’t think she actually believes me. I do though. And I do it for a good reason. I like shopping with her despite the fact that I dislike shopping. Thus, in my mind, it makes sense when I say that I hate shopping, but I think it is a great thing to do.