Shopping Spree

This past weekend I went on a bit of a spending spree. I go through these phases where I buy nothing, and then all of a sudden in one fell swoop I buy everything. For example, I had a Williams Sonoma gift card burning a hole in my pocket since Christmas, so I went in and bought a cast iron skillet (that for some reason has an incredibly small handle - is that how they all are?), a pie/turnover mold, and two enormous cook books. In case you’re wondering, the gift card was for $50.00. My bill was $140.00. Then I took those bags to the car, because who wants to walk around the mall lugging a 20 pound frying pan and pie mold, and headed back for round two.

There I hit up The Bay. I love The Bay – they literally have everything you could ever need. I bought a sweater, two pairs of Levi’s jeans (as a side note, I love Levi’s jeans. I’m not embarrassed to admit that I have gone to Mark’s Work Warehouse on more than one occasion to buy a pair), a pair of shoes, one skirt, and a pair of pants for work. The woman at the til was trying to sell me on getting a Bay card, because then I would save 10% on my purchase. I looked her right in the eye, and said, “I’m going to go home, try all of this on, and return half of it. The Bay card won’t be necessary today.” So she asks me the next logical question of, why don’ you try it on right now, to which I don’t even reply, but just look towards the fitting rooms, where at 60 year old sales associate is trying to wrangle a line of about 7 women, each with no less than 275 items in their arms to try on.

True to form, I did go home, try everything on, and only ended up keeping one pair of jeans and a sweater. I can’t be the only one who does this. When you shop, do you only buy what you went for, or do you get lulled into a fugue state and when you get home have no recollection of buying half the stuff you did? Then I go back to the mall, return everything, and then buy some more, and the vicious cycle continues.