Shopping, an Essay.

Reprinted with permission of the author (well, duh! the author is me). Written a few years ago, and relevant to what's filling up some of your free time these days.

"I always forget how much I really really really LOVE shopping until the holiday season rolls around. I wouldn't call myself an avid consumer, it's not that often I find myself in the mall. you see, I live with this condition...I guess it's a condition, I don't know what else to call it...where I set off the alarms at 75% of the stores I enter/exit. It's the stupidest hassle in the world. Some places don't really give a damn. Some clerks just brush it off because they heard the bells & whistles when I walked into the store, and I remind them when I'm walking out that I'm *probably* going to set the alarm off. Often after setting them off on my entrance I don't set them when I leave, which is bizarre. Some of the clerks tell me it's probably my cell phone, although I've changed cell phones 3x in the last 7 years and this hasn't gone away. Going to borders or barnes & noble is fun because I need to alert the hired holiday security guard prior to leaving so they don't chase me down. When I alert them and then somehow fail to trigger the noisemakers I become even more of a suspect in their eyes. Clothing stores with diligent customer service employees trying to impress the boss are always great...they want to go through my bags, my pockets, my coats, and run them all over the demagnetizing sensor before I'm allowed to leave. No matter how many times I tell them its just me they don't get it. They are CONVINCED that some subpar employee at some other clothing store forgot to take off a sensor. "I don't think it's anything in that bag. This happened at the Gap, at Restoration Hardware, at Sharper Image, at Old Navy, and at Forever 21 all five times I've been there today." "No, I'm absolutely sure there's something in one of these bags that is setting off the alarms." Often I find myself hovering around the exit waiting to notify someone, it's like I'm trapped inside loitering until I can track down an employee to let me leave. At the thanksgiving day children's table of retail shopping I'm forever waiting for permission from an adult to be excused."

happy holidays. stimulate your local economy, not those garbage stores i mention above.