SHOPAHOLIC, SHOPAPHOBIC OR WHAT?

FEATURED POSTS

July 31, 2017

SHOPPING FUN AT HOME DEPOT /photo by Carmela Cunningham

I hate to shop.

Going to the mall is my idea of Hell on Earth. All the men are condemned to the rock-hard, little benches in the center of the promenade, glassy-eyed and bored, waiting for their women to finish looking at, and picking out, and trying on, and spending money on, all kinds of silly stuff.

There’s the kiosks manned by young women selling earrings, and sunglasses, and custom cases for mobile phones. There are giggling gaggles of young girls with bags of goodies from Forever 21 and Claire’s, and the young and foolish men who are trying to impress them or make them laugh or do whatever is needed to get their attention. And there’s the food court, with overpriced, bad fast food – the Chinese place, the pizza place, the taco place, the lemonade place. Cinnabon and Mrs. Fields, Sbarro and Hot Dog on a Stick, Subway and Orange Julius.

It’s the temple of conspicuous consumption, where people cash in the proceeds of long hours spent at jobs they mostly hate for overpriced clothes and senseless junk. I know as I write this that I am being a grumpy old man. But I don’t like to shop. And I have no interest in spending money on stuff I don’t want and don’t need.

On the other hand, there are some exceptions to my shopaphobia. I may hate the mall, but I love to shop for groceries. When my wife goes to the grocery store, she makes a list, she picks up the items on the list, puts them in her basket, goes to the cashier and pays for the items she bought. How boring.

I, on the other hand, go up and down every single aisle, looking for stuff that may not be on the list, BUT that may be a wonderful new discovery. Like the Spicy Maple Bourbon pickle chips or the frozen barbecue chicken personal pizza, or the Wickles Wicked Jalapeno Relish, the spicy pad thai sauce, organic butter from grass-fed Irish cows, beer mixed with Clamato juice, and chocolate vodka.

These are not the kind of things you find rushing up and down the aisles with a list of necessities. It may take me a lot longer, but it’s time well spent.

There are some places, however, where both husband and wife can enjoy the shopping experience. Those are stores such as Home Depot, Lowes, and True Value Hardware. One goes to the garden center to buy flowers, the other to the tools and the fixtures, and the hardware.

The truth is, I’m not all that handy, but I like to pretend that I am, and Home Depot is a perfect place to do it. There’s tile to be laid, switches to install, shovels and picks to dig with, and bricks to stack into garden walls.

It’s a manly place to hang out, a place that makes you want to spackle a wall, install a new faucet, or just browse around and get inspired for possible new projects.

There’s no food courts at Home Depot or Lowes, no sissy kiosks or frilly dresses. You may be a tax accountant or an insurance adjuster by day, but when you hit Home Depot of the weekend, you come in your work clothes and steel-toed boots.

Now that’s the way shopping is supposed to be.

– George Lee Cunningham

Do you have a dissenting opinion or any opinion at all on the subject? Contact me at george@georgeleecunningham.com and let me know. Meanwhile, you can always subscribe and get an email reminder of blog postings. Your name will not be shared and you may cancel at any time.

News

April 17, 2024

Minor Character

Sometimes I feel like a minor character in one of those really long James Michener historic novels. I’m one of the guys they check in on a couple of times during the course of the book and one more time when he finally kicks the bucket. In truth, that suits me just fine. I don’t want to be one of the major players – those guys who lie, cheat, sleep around, make a lot of money, kill a lot of people, and then then suffer a tragic death on Christmas Eve. I just want to be me – plugging along, having some fun, loving the same woman for years, and then quietly passing away.

March 25, 2024

Cereal Killer

I have almost given up on cereal. As a younger man, I loved a sugary treat. As an old man, who has to watch his diet, I find myself checking labels on everything. Sugar is the enemy. For instance, Cap’n Crunch – a former favorite of my wife – contains: Corn Flour, Sugar, Oat Flour, Brown Sugar, Palm and/or Coconut Oil, Salt, Reduced Iron, Yellow 5, Niacinamide, Yellow 6, BHT, Thiamin, Mononitrate, Pridoxined Hydrochloride, Rioflavin, and Folic Acid. My choice: plain old Shredded Wheat. Ingredients: wheat and BHT (a harmless preservative). Not a taste treat, but at least I’ll live to tell about it

Highway Memorials

Driving across country nowadays, we notice a growing number of roadside displays – flowers, crosses, and ribbons – marking the sites where people apparently died in traffic accidents. I do understand mourning the passing of somebody you love, but I’m not sure I see the point of putting a display at the place along the road where they died. Even sadder is the fact that flowers wilt and highway trash piles up around the displays, making them just another sad reminder of life cut short.

December 5, 2023

Love Motives

I often tell my wife I love and adore her, mainly because I do and also because women like to hear the man in their life actually say the words. But during one conversation I had to confess that some times when I say it – especially when she is irked and giving me the deadly silent treatment – I am also reminding myself of that fact so I don’t start yelling and slamming doors. Is that so wrong?

Being Mortal

I am officially an old man. Sometimes I forget, then I look in the mirror and there it is. The truth is that life has its limits, and that is how it should be. There are new generations coming up, ready to step up and take our place. They are welcome to it. If you have reached old age, you have made some blunders in you life. If you think otherwise, then you are indeed a fool. You can warn the new generations about the mistakes you made, but they are oblivious. This too is as it should be. It’s their world, and it’s on them to screw it up for the generations to follow, just as we did for them.

Good Deeds

There is a saying that no good deed goes unpunished. It’s mostly – but not always – true. The problem with good deeds is that most people who do them expect to be appreciated. In actuality, good-deed recipients are more often resentful about it, rather than grateful. Nobody likes being the person who has to rely on the good will of others. So do good deeds for your own sake – because it makes you feel better, not because you want to be feel appreciated.

Recreational Bitching

Did you ever notice that some people – maybe more people than not – like to complain about everything? In the summertime, it’s too hot. In the wintertime it’s too cold. Health care is too expensive. Young people are too rude. Old people move too slowly. There ought to be a law against anything and everything that might make one unhappy. It’s recreational bitching, and we all do it to greater or lesser extent. Maybe once in a while, it might make sense to listen to how we talk and how we think. Most of us are just doing the best that we can.