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Tis the season to go shoppina, but Jim Williams of Lafayette, La., takes a break and watches
shoppers Friday in Gateway Shopping Center.
Shopping-haters have
mall amusement options
By Sean Green
Staff Reporter
hrisimas shopping is one of
/ those things you either like or
don’t like, there is no middle
ground.
Those who like shopping are easy
to spot.
When they see a mall, or a crafts
store or a hardware store, hear the
Christmas music and see the decora
tions, their eyes glaze over and they
look as though they’re about to wei
themselves.
Those who don’t like shopping are
even easier to spot.
Their eyes also glaze over, but it’s
not from shopping-induced rapture,
it’s from pure horror. They can ’ t stand
still, they are pale and they look as
though they may vomit.
Unfortunately, or fortunately,
depending on how you look at it, I
belong to the latter category.
Not only do I dislike shopping in
general, I especially hate Christmas
shopping.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a
Scrooge, and I enjoy giving. But I
would almost rather die than have to
go to a mall to get my holiday cheer.
There’s really no problem with
either liking or disliking shopping.
It’s a relatively free country, and there’s
no law that says anybody has to shop
against their will.
The problem arises when you mix
a shopper with a non-shopper. It’s
like mixing eggnog and Easter-egg
dye.
You can always tell when you see
a mismatched pair of shoppers in a
mall. They’re usually married, for
example. Only a bond as strong as
marriage or parole can make a person
who doesn’t like to shop enter a mall.
The ones who like to shop run
from store window to store window
with a wad of credit cards clasped in
their sweaty palms.
The ones who don’t like to shop
follow their fanatic devotedly, star
ing morosely out windows at the free
world and wishing they could sit down
for a while.
To non-shoppers such as myself,
the most, frustrating thing about those
who like to shop is when they don’t
buy anything.
It’s bad enough to waste an entire
day in a shopping mall. But when the
day is over and the shopper hasn’t
bought a single thing, it’s as if some
one had spent six months training for
a marathon and then not entered it.
I ascribe to the “get in and get out”
theory of Christmas shopping. Go to
the store, buy the present and run for
it. Or better yet, start in October and
order everything from a catalog.
Those who like shopping ascribe
to the “gel in, go down every aisle in
every store, eat some overpriced mall
food, go to a movie, go through every
store again in case you missed some
thing and agonize over every pur
chase for hours” theory.
For those who don’t like to shop,
there are ways to combat shopping
fatigue.
“Name that Muzak,” for example,
is popular, but during the holiday
season malls only pipe in the Christ
mas standards, so it’s not much of a
challenge.
' Shopping for yourself is OK, for a
while, but it gets old when you run out
of money.
“Confuse the clerk” is a favorite
game of mine. Try making up a for
eign language, or asking for some
thing that doesn’t exist.
For example, “Excuse me, do you
have any door-handle fluid?”
Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not
against Christmas shopping, and I
don’t dislike people who shop, when
they’re not shopping. But I take of
fense at those who give the kind of
gifts that keep on giving, like vene
real diseases or a video cassette re
cording of the “Smurf’s Christmas.”
But if I’m faced with the decision
to shop or do something else . . .
anything else,.. such as being
boiled in tar, I’ll take the
other option. -