Shopping and stress

I haven't written much about this on this site, but shopping, even non-Christmas-time shopping, stresses me out almost more than any other activity. It's a combination of my aversion to crowds; my annoyance of rude, selfish people; the pressures of trying to find the best bargains; and feeling down that I don't have more money. All of this is multiplied at Christmas. Yes, you can shop on line and avoid all of this (if you plan, which I seldom do). But then you always have to pay shipping costs, except at a few places like Amazon.

So, inevitably, I find myself faced with going shopping at the busiest time of the year. Macy's was open round the clock at a bunch of New York locations. Our closest Macy's in Douglaston was only open till midnight. At 10 p.m. P. and I decided to go out to pick up some things, some last minute gifts. I was exhausted and did not want to go out. My strategy is simply to talk myself into accepting as much as possible. If there is rudeness, let it go; if there are long lines, pick up a magazine; if there are bratty, demanding children running through the store, thank God you don't have your own...

Inevitably, it's better than you imagine. We found what we needed at Macy's (I did need to get something else, but that "something else" was an unknown and I was too tired to go browsing right then). There was a Modell's next door that was also open till Midnight. P.'s mom had asked for warm sweat shirt and sweatpants to wear around the house. We found them there, so it was a succesful trip. Made a brief foray through the sporting equipment, looked at an aisle-end display of ping-pong paddles. P. declared them "too flimsy" for my butt, and too loud to use in our apartment, so we moved on. Oh well.

At Macy's, as you may know, they have some partnership with Godiva chocolates so that no matter what department you're in there are chocolate bars for sale at the register. I'm a sucker for dark chocolate... and the stress of shopping made that chocolate so, so tempting. But it was late, I knew how much I would regret giving in, and I knew the momentary indulgence wouldn't be worth it.

Today we went to Barnes and Noble (we go every Sunday morning for coffee) and I finished my shopping. Thank god!