I don't really care much for shopping. I don't like crowded stores, carts with a bum wheel, or long lines at the checkout. I also don't like the time it takes to make an informed choice. Trying on clothes is the worst. I'd just as soon grab something off the shelf or hanger and take my chances when I get home as find a fitting room. Maybe it's all those mirrors. I've managed to go thirty-six years without knowing what I look like from behind and I see no reason to take a peek now. Pretty much if a pair of pants don't fall off my hips while I'm walking then they'll do.Perhaps this is why nothing ever seems to fit me right.
I also hate having too many choices. Last weekend Tricia sent me to Target with a list of things to get. Most were easy things - granola bars, cereal, face wash, Expo markers. I was doing fine until I hit the shampoo aisle. I knew that we use Pantene which narrowed down my choices. But not by all that much. There were formulas made specifically for fine hair, curly hair, medium-thick hair, and hair that had been artificially colored. Sensing certain defeat, my shoulders slumped and my eyes glazed over. I noticed that the top shelf contained another choice: classic care. I assumed this was the formula for men who didn't know enough or care enough to match a shampoo to their particular hair type. As much as I wanted to believe that this was the right choice it was blue and I knew our bottle wasn't blue. But what color was it?
After studying my choices I finally decided that we had the red bottle for curly hair. I reached to grab it when I noticed yet another choice. There were multiple red bottles for curly hair. One was labeled "Curls to Straight" and the other was "Dry to Moisturized."
"You've got to be ****ing kidding me!" I mumbled under my breath. "Why isn't there one that just says 'Dirty to Clean?'"
By this time I had spent what felt like ten minutes staring at the same bottles over and over again with little hope of making any sense of it all. In the end I decided to randomly guess. I don't know which one I chose but Tricia hasn't said anything. Maybe she didn't even notice. Or care.
Or maybe I got lucky and picked the right one. That would be nice.
Ha! I can totally relate. Dirty to clean indeed. I was thinking about writing something similar about the cereal choices. There is such a continuum from total bran, cardboard tasting fiber sticks to total crap (sugar+artificial flavors+other artificial ingredients). I went to Wal-Mart with our Ali from Somalia who had lived in a refugee camp in Kenya for 13 years. We didn't have much language in common, but he kept speaking in Somalian as he was looking around in total awe. I understood the translation to be something like, "Oh, my God!!! Look at all this stuff!! I have never seen so much stuff in one place in my entire life!! Why do you have all this stuff?? Can everyone here afford to buy this stuff?!?!" OK, I might have exaggerated the exclamation points some, but I'm pretty sure that's what he meant.
ReplyDeleteIf you have never seen yourself from an odd angle, like the side or behind, it is a trip. You should try it sometime.