Shopping is not something I enjoy. Grocery shopping is a nightmare of trying to avoid all the food that start yelling at me the moment I walk through the automatic doors. It’s even worse when I’m hungry and those fucking doughnuts start up with me. Clothes shopping is an even bigger nightmare because….well….I have big boobs…..and nothing fits properly. I’m left trying to find the best fit that doesn’t fit so I can take it to a tailor who can make it fit. Sigh.
And then there is the matter of shopping for things for our home. Thankfully, The Viking doesn’t interfere very often because the only things he’s really interested in is the refrigerator, the TV and the bed, everything in between is just fluff.
My method of shopping is “Guerilla Shopping”, where I’m in and out in the shortest amount of time possible. When I need something specific – like a big salad bowl that I can mix meal-size salads in without half the salad splatting on the counter – I go to a store. I don’t wander around taking my time. I go directly to the “Bowls” section. “No. No. No. Definitely No! No. Really? They call that a salad bowl? No. No. No.” Then I take the shortest route to the exit. Next store. Do you have any idea how many bowl stores do not have a really big salad bowls? It’s like they are purposely withholding extra-large bowls from me!
There is one exception to my carefully orchestrated shopping protocols – Home Sense. Any time I happen to be near a Home Sense I take an extra 5 minutes to make a lap through the store. “No. No. Who would buy that?! No. That’s stupid. No. Oh My God that’s Fugly! No. No. Okay I’m outta here!”
On rare occasions I find a “Find” -a 3 foot tall mushroom or copper heads of Laurel & Hardy or a glass dragon or a 3 foot tall, solid teak carved cat with a bow tie. I can’t just walk away from these things. The Viking has learned to just carry the things from the car to the house without a word. He understands that certain things are simply destined to be mine. It’s as inevitable as death and taxes.
So, one day I was making my usual romp through Home Sense, rounded a corner and there….in the middle of the main aisle…..was my dining table! I’ve been looking for that table for 6 YEARS! It stood there glowing in angelic luminescence, showing off its extra leaves, waving its beautiful legs at me. My knees grew weak and I had to sit down on a nearby, fugly chair. I told the table that it wasn’t a good day – we are still recovering from a weekend of hell.
The table explained that my weekend of hell had nothing to do with it and if I should walk away, some other seriously undeserving woman would come along and take it to their home where it wouldn’t be nearly as happy as it would be at my home. Just then another woman walked past me and looked at the table….paused and ran her hand across the woodgrain. “See?!”, said the table. I looked at the price and groaned. Of course they wouldn’t charge a quadrillion dollars that would make it easy for me to walk away. I gave the woman snake eyes, silently willing her to move along, the table is mine! Once she was a safe distance away I trotted…..yes, trotted….to the nearest sales woman and told her I wanted the table. She took an annoyingly long time to get back to the table (that other woman could be having the same conversation with it that I had just had!) and put the ‘Sold’ sign on it.
Then I went home to tell The Viking the good news. At first, he seemed okay with it, but at 6 o’clock when he wanted nothing more than to sit down and have supper, he wasn’t nearly as happy. I believe his exact words were “stupid fucking dumb fucking tired stupid fuck, fuck, fuck dumb never again!” Then it started pouring rain. And then he realized how heavy my table was and his vocabulary went downhill.
We did get the table into the house though, and it tells me, all the time, how happy it is. It likes the compliments it gets from visitors, too. And The Viking doesn’t call it foul names anymore, which is nice.
Unfortunately, I am still waiting for my Salad Bowl to get in touch with me. Someday…..when I’m least expecting it…..and when it’s the worst possible time……
