Shopping and Other Evils

     I believe that we conjure our own personal hell. Mine will be similar to Dante's ninth ring described in his "Inferno". It will be cold, and added to that, no sleep due to constant snoring although it is unclear where the snoring comes from if no one is asleep. Maybe it is piped in like elevator music. Added to these miseries, I will be required to go shopping…with women…for eternity. That thought alone has caused much repentance on my part.

            I stop mere micro-millimeters from saying that I hate shopping, but if it is possible to get any closer and not actually hate something, I am there. I squirm in my chair as I vividly remember shopping for school clothes on a miserably hot west Texas day in August in an un-air-conditioned department store. I can still feel the stiff scratchiness of new blue jeans on my bare, sweaty legs, as I was forced to try on pair after pair for what seemed like an eternity. Right back to the hell thing, aren't we?

            The most memorable whipping I received as a child, and there were many of them, all justified, was due to my throwing a screaming-meany fit because I did not want to go shopping with the family on a Saturday. The hell of this one was that I still had to go shopping, but with my butt stinging all the while. The only thing missing that day was the cold and snoring. Those two torments were years in the future.

            I have never liked shopping unless we were going for something I wanted, but that was so rare that I remember only once in my childhood it ever happening. That singular event was when I had somehow acquired sufficient funds to buy a pair of Converse All-stars. The shopping lasted ten minutes tops, as I already knew exactly what I wanted down to the size. It would have lasted five minutes, but my mother had to look over my purchase and compare one black high top to another to make sure I knew what I was doing.  Other than doubling the length of time in the store, it was near perfect. The only way you can improve on a five-minute shopping spree is if you do not leave the house at all. Enter, the modern age.

            I wondered if there was anything I couldn't buy over the internet and never have to leave my desk, much less the house. I started investigating, looking for obscure, ridicules things like a DC-3, a "Long-Tom" cannon, and a helicopter gun ship. I found them all for sale! I have not completed those purchases…yet.

            Shopping for these items has taken me into the darkest recesses of the Ether, or the cloud, as they now call it, and it is scary in there, but whatever your little heart desires, you can find. My stroll down that virtual dark alley, has given the term "Black Market" a completely new meaning.  

            After playing with the ridiculous, I wondered about the acquisition of more mundane, daily need items. I was not disappointed. The first thing I sought was groceries. I thought there would be no way, but I was stunned to find several online grocery providers who would ship right to my door. The real test came when I searched for the most staple of staples in my diet, chocolate doughnuts. Yep, I found them, right down to my favorite brand.

            The only problem I have with online shopping is that the prices are higher, and when you add shipping, it is cheaper to shop near home. I am willing to pay more for convenience, and to be able to stay home and not go into a store…with a female. The overage is a small price indeed.

            The Admiral is famous for saying, "I'm going to the store for a minute." I should know by now that she is not talking in "guy" minutes, which are the traditional sixty-second ones. No, she is speaking in "girl" minutes, which are sixty minutes long. Most normal people, or I should say, males, call that an hour.

            When she and the Princesses, trained by her, get home, I incredulously ask, "Where have you been?"

            They look at me with well-practiced, impatient stares and say, "At the store," as if that is the end all of explanations. They smile, and it goes downhill from there.

            You would think after all these years of marriage that I would have learned not to go to any store with her, but I have not. I am still a sucker for, "I'm only going for two things. Do you want to come along?" I love her, and do go, but it never fails. The "two things" turn out to be two shopping carts that are filled only after she has read, nay, memorized every label on every item.

            I know it is my fault. I bring it on myself as punishment for some sin for which I have not repented. After all, it is my own personal hell. Cue the cold and snoring.