One Shopping Bag, Two Shopping Bags, Three..

If I had to define shopping, I’d say that it was a recreational sport that most women indulged in. Why do they do what they do? Nobody knows.

Here are a few observations that I’ve made:

1. Women take forever to pick something out, be it clothes, cosmetics, shoes, bags, supplies, whatever. They make purgatory seem like a snap of the fingers.
2. They just can’t walk into a store and buy what they have to. They absolutely positively need to go to at least ten different stores that sell the same thing, make comparisons with the products of the previous stores and finally end up going back to the first store.
3. Bargaining – it’s obsessive compulsive disorder. They must bargain and quote unreasonably low prices. Following defeat by harassed shopkeepers, they end up paying the original price anyway and walk out beaming.
4. If asked to walk from one end of the street to other in heels, they will refuse to do so under the pretext of their legs hurting. But if they have to walk up and down the same street in heels multiple times while shopping, it’s perfectly alright because they have strong calf muscles. Right.
5. They throw tricky questions at those who accompany them on their shopping sprees. For example, while buying a pair of shoes they might ask, “Is this nice?” If you say yes, they ask why. If you say no, you still have to answer why. If you really don’t know the answer, give a non-committal reply like a grunt. Also, they tend to ask the same question twice, so at a later time if they show you the same pair of shoes that you said weren’t nice, remember what your answer was because they definitely will. It’s a test... shhh. Another example, “Do I look fat in this?” Now the logical answer to this question if the person is fat is – Yes dear, you are fat and you’re obviously going to look fat in anything you wear. But the right answer to this question is – No, not at all. It complements your curves (or tyres or whatever other geometrical structure).
6. They spend over an hour in a clothes store trying on different things, spend another 30 minutes eliminating stuff from the pile of clothes they tried on, figure out that they don’t like anything after all and ultimately walk out empty-handed.
7. They notice the minutest defects in what they intend to purchase, like for instance the most microscopic tear in the sleeve of a sweater that even an ant wouldn’t fit through.
8. The correlation between happiness and the number of shopping bags is very high.

Pop quiz: Why do women like to window shop?