Do not fear, my lovely readers I have not gone all cheesy on you. I am not attempting some sort of corny title. I do truly mean daze, not "days" in a bad ad kinda way.
What I am talking about here is the sort of deer in the headlights reaction I tend to have when faced with a supermarket or any large shopping centre. I find that if I do not pack myself a neatly drawn up list of things I have to buy and where I have to buy them, then I always find myself frozen and stupid. Frozen by the lights? The noise? The people? I do not know what it is exactly but it is quite strange. I can enter a supermarket with my IQ in tact, withing 2 minutes I am reduced to a fumbling idiot. I can wander aimlessly up and down the aisles. Staring at things on shelves not really even thinking about whether I want to buy them, just staring off in a daze.
I go completely stupid! For a while there I thought it was my eyesight not adjusting well to the bright lights. Then I considered the temperature changes. So cold in the dairy aisle, f-f-freezing in the ice cream section then warmish around the rotisserie chickens. I can't blame the little Tinker because my shopping daze problem existed well before her arrival.
I have been known to pop down to the supermarket to buy 3 things and come home with about 13 bags of things. None of them anything to do with the three I actually set out to buy. Time slips away when I am at the supermarket. I don't know where it goes. Maybe I lose it in a particular aisle? Is the aisle with the eggs? There are so many different eggs now. Did you know you can buy free range organic eggs grown in Queensland by Japanese farmers? Well you can at my local shopping centre.
It isn't just the supermarket either. It is the rest of the mall as well. I am completely unable to go shopping without a target. I can get lost in the mall all day long and come home with absolutely nothing but a pair of black socks for my husband. Of course these day long trips to the mall are a thing of the past now that I have my Tinker but you know what I mean. Now I just get 20 minutes trips to the mall where I wander aimlessly and leave with a Teletubbie or something.
When I had money and or time to burn my shopping daze wasn't such a disability because it didn't really matter that I set out to buy a raincoat, wasted 8 hours at shopping centre and came home with a bag of broccolini and a manicure. These days however it is important that I get what I set out to buy and for this reason I am one of those anal shoppers who takes a typed out shopping list sectioned off into aisles and even separated into sides. For example at supermarket A.) I know that eggs are in the 3rd aisle on the right opposite the tinned tomatoes and at supermarket B.) I know the chicken consomme is in the 5th aisle on the left opposite the cous cous. On the days where I have not made myself a list I always come home with crazy things like weird sausages.
That was Monday night. My reason? There was a man cooking up free samples and because I tasted one and there was nobody else there at the time I felt awkward saying thank you and walking away while he had his Madonna-type headset thing on and he was looking right at me, so I took a packet and put them in my trolley.
Is there anyone else out there who suffers from 'shopping daze'? Tell me about it!
The big box stores and huge warehouse operations are the worst. The shelves towering over your head. Customers pushing/dragging oversized items on platform carts. Motorized lifts beeping and backing up. Cavernous echoing. The fluorescent lights. Yeah, stimulus overload. Even in the grocery store, I've been known to track down a store clerk to "find" and item I'd been standing in front of or circling around for twenty minutes.
ReplyDeleteI used to like just wandering and looking at things but now that my kids are 4 and 2 it is all about getting the things I need and getting out of their as quickly as possible before someone screams, fights, pulls something off the shelf or all of the above. So definitely try and get used to lists now as it is the only way to solve the daze and the craze that will come when your daughter is a toddler. :)
ReplyDeleteMe, me, me!
ReplyDeleteI've always become rather vacant as soon as I walk through a supermarket/mall entrance. I've never been able to pinpoint the cause, the bright lights, the crowds, the overwhelming choice, all of the above?
It's got even worse since we moved to the outback. We normally do out shopping in our little 6 aisle IGA, you want jam? Fine you have a "choice" of one brand. Fresh fruit and veggies? Delivered once a week, Tuesday, get in quick because most of it's gone by Friday.
Once every 6 weeks or so we make the 500 odd km trip to the "big smoke" of Kalgoorlie to do a real shop. I usually wander the aisles like a lost lamb for 1.5 hours, then walk out with $600 worth of groceries, inevitably forgetting the things I went in for in the first place!
Yes, I most definately suffer shopping daze.
Seriously, I cannot go to a shop without a shopping list.
ReplyDeleteYesterday I went in to my local groceryshop, looking for potatoes.
I came out with ten different types of fruit (a watermelon, a cantilope, six kiwis, strawberries, three oranges, four pears and the list goes on and on...)
and a box containing glue.
I dont need any glue... :s
I prefer shopping with a focus, meaning having something specific I am looking for and going to get it. I don't like spending too much time in a super market or mall. That's one of the things I think you can get from the online experience.
ReplyDeletei get like that all thet time. i like making lists as well, but not as detailed as yours. the malls make me dizzy, afterwards i need to rest for at least half hour to get my balance back. when i go shopping not even a list can stop me from buying 'interesting', new goodies. i like to experience you know, so my hubby gets nervous everytime i go to the store by myself. oh and i am getting better at checking the cost of an item, thanks to my husband offcourse. :)
ReplyDeleteI think you would be a hoot to shop with!
ReplyDeleteKelly
Oh. God. How I love Costco. My boyfriend and I seriously get a thrill out of going there for lunch on Sunday...buying a hotdog and a coke for 99 cents, and then wandering up and down the aisles imagining what we'll buy next. In. Bulk!!! And we're only in our late 20's...
ReplyDeleteLOL, I also feel pressure to buy what is given as a sample so as not to feel like I'm rude! But then I leave it behind at the checkout counter, then I go home and I just KNOW the sample lady knew if was ME who left the item behind. Just paranoid, I guess.
ReplyDeleteReally? A list with aisle numbers? What happens when they re-organize the store? Do you buy the soccer balls on aisle 3 because there used to be eggs there ;-) I make a list on a notepad in the kitchen as things run low or run out, then take it with me to the store when I go. No aisle numbers, though, I'm not that organized.
ReplyDeleteI am exactly like you are with this. I have to force myself to make a list before I leave. When I get back home, even with the list I have always left something off of it that I really needed and just forgot to add to the list. On the days that I think that I will just remember what I need, I wander aimless up and down aisles for a long amount of time often returning home without the very things I went for. I am a new follower and am LOVING your blog.
ReplyDeleteYes...me and my Husband both. Mostly because we both suffer from PTSD and freeze around people though.
ReplyDeleteI love all the replies, so glad I'm not the only dazed shopper out there! Now I don't actually write the aisles numbers on my list I just draw up a big page of columns and start from the right of the store and go accross and I have a littlke dotted line down each one so I see which side I can find things on. My husband loves my list, he gets very lost with the groceries. One day a lady said- oh I bet your wife made you that list? It is fabuluos you are so lucky! He felt quite chuiffed about the dorky list then.
ReplyDeleteWhen they change aisles or I switch stores then it does take a me a bit longer to do my shopping! Luckily I never take the Tinker with me. I have a thing against kids in supermarkets I think is spells trouble. On the few occasions I have taken her it has ended badly!!
I think they must design the lights, the colours and the music to put you in a semi-trance. Maybe they even spray something into the air. Without a list I am lost in a mall or a supermarket.
ReplyDeleteYou're funny!
ReplyDeleteThe supermarket is my downfall. Along with target. I can never buy enough food and always get stuck in the baby toys at target.
ReplyDeleteI feel the same way you do when I walk into a mall. I don't even know where to begin in a huge department store! And I'm glad that there is *someone* else out there who has a detailed list like I do. Mine is not sectioned by the sides of the aisles, but I do have a typed out one saved on my computer to use each week that is sectioned off into aisles. My husband makes fun of me, but it helps me get out of the store faster, which is essential when you have a two-year-old!
ReplyDeleteI have not been sticking to my list. My family has chunked up this winter!!
ReplyDeleteI shall thin us out this summer. So hard to focus on healthy eating and shopping when your frozen!
My list is also organized by aisle! Isn't everyone's list?
The meat section of the supermarket I can manage. Butchers however are beyond me. I tried to buy three pieces of meat today. Doesn't sound too hard does it? After much banter the butcher handed me a neatly wrapped bundle of meat and asked for the most exorbitant amount of money. I sacrificed a manicure for that much meat-money. Too embarrassed to ask him to unwrap it, I smiled as I paid for it and limped away with the humiliation of it all.
ReplyDeleteYou really could not have written that better. Before my daughter came along, I could shop in a jiffy or hours if that is the way I wanted it. But now... I just cannot seem to do anything right. In the last few years, I have made terrible choices when it came to clothes...my clothes. I will get a size bigger or smaller. I just cannot seem to get it right. Same thing with supermarkets.
ReplyDeleteYes - especially when I have to go to 2 different stores because one sells all the good organic food and the other has diapers!
ReplyDeleteI am really weird i oddly really love grocery shopping!
ReplyDeletehttp://lifesajourney-missma.blogspot.com/2009/04/supermarket-day.html
I know exactly what you mean. Big stores give me the crazy eyes (don't know what to look at first) and give me a bit of headache. There's so much going on, so much information being sent to our brains. It can be quite painful!
ReplyDeleteLove your blog, I just made mine, wish it couyld half as good as yours, I dont even have followers, only time will tell.
ReplyDeleteCool blog, I'm trying to make mine just as good but I've only had few hours yet.
ReplyDeleteI suffer shopping daze all the time !!
I AM NEW TO YOUR BLOG,AND I HAVE TO SAY THAT IT IS FANTASTIC!
ReplyDeleteTHIS PARTICULAR POSTING IS THE REASON THAT I AM AN ONLINE SHOPPING JUNKIE OR AN E~BAY W**RE
AS MY HUSBAND JOKINGLY REFERS TO ME.
AS FOR THE GROCERY SHOPPING,THAT IS WERE I AM LUCKY,MY HUSBAND LOVES TO DO IT!
I was in coles today and thought about this post. When I am with the toddler, I move around the aisles as quickly as possible. It is a nightmare with her though, she wants her own basket and goes around grabbing things from the shelf. If I try to stop her, she lets out this horrendous shriek - so I just let roam. Good thing is, I don't spend very much because I am so quick. Without the toddler, I too suffer from the daze...and spend much more money!
ReplyDeleteThose two Aussie women who brought out the cooking book are bloody annoying.
ReplyDeleteI also suffer from "shopping daze." I first noticed it when I was pregnant and diagnosed myself with pregnesia. But I'm not pregnant anymore! Thanks for giving it a name.
ReplyDeletetheadventuresofcutiepie.blogspot.com
I just discovered your blog today - and I really like the retro housewife pictures you have on the side of your blog.
ReplyDeleteYou have got to get into woolworths homeshop! It will save your life if you have a toddler, and if you have a husband like mine that wont buy anything that isnt on a list- eg toilet paper, we get it every shop so I never wrote it down, so he never bought it if he did the shop, grrrrrr!!!
ReplyDeleteNow I just add extras to my standard internet woolies list and it arrives the following day and the guy brings it right into my kitchen! I can even pay by eftpos when he arrives. So easy!
For me, it isn't so much shopping daze as it is a strong desire to get out and go home as soon as possible! It wasn't like this always. Just since the turn in the economy and a sudden need to economize at home. Now, I only go to a store if I have a specific item I am looking for and I leave as quickly as I can! My daughter (who loves to shop) is very disgruntled with this change in mom!
ReplyDeleteHi! To save money, I make an inventory of what I have in my freezer and pantry first. Then, I figure out what I can make out of them for the week's menu, then I go out and buy whatever I need to supplement what's not in my kitchen. That way, my fridge is not filled to the brim but we have enough to fill everyone's tummy.
ReplyDeleteI used to be in a "daze" while shopping in the early days of my marriage and motherhood. Sometimes, I still get like that if I'm not purposeful when I shop. After six years, I'm more methodical and efficient. It takes a while to figure out homemaking. It is quite an art, but it can be learned. I now look at my household as a corporation, every task is a project that needs to be alloted a window of time to fulfill.