One man (and his wife) and his shopping

This morning my wife had planned on seeing a friend who gives great hair cuts. So we woke up as early as we could after a late night out with friends and drove to see this friend of hers. I sat around listening to some music on my iPod. Once she finished, we walked up the road into town, handy as the friend lives pretty much right in the inner city of Sydney and we went up to Chinatown for some Yum Cha.

Yum Cha was good. I like it. You sit down and are served hot food immediately. The concept is brilliant. No waiting, just food. An old traditional idea that works well with today's busy society.

After that we went for a walk and found a DVD shop where we wanted to buy Red Cliff. We found it, though I had said to my wife before, "I'm not buying any more DVD's, it's all Blu-Ray now". She thought that was funny because we don't have a player to play them on. However, when the time comes and my 10 year old DVD player finally heads South. I'll be buying one.

So, on the way home, we saw that a local home super shopping centre (Harvey Norman) was having a sale. I suggested we stop in and look at two things wee 'need'. I say need, really it was only one thing, a new vacuum cleaner. But while we're there, we'll look at Blu-Ray players.

Now, when I shop, I have purpose. I don't like to window shop. I don't like walking around aimlessly looking at things I wish I could afford. I go in, I buy what I can afford, I come home immediately and I play with the newly purchased item(s) like a kid on Christmas day.

Well, today turned out to be a window shopping day and I feel so empty, so cheated and unfulfilled that I was almost ready to impulse buy something just so I didn't come home empty handed.

This whole idea goes against every grain in my body. I don't want or like excess. I don't buy things just because. However, I felt cheated because we visited one shop that sells both Blu-Ray players and vacuum cleaners and none of them had anything we liked.

We went to a vacuum cleaner specialist, and there was nothing there we liked either.

We then went to another electronics place that sold both Blu-Ray players and vacuum cleaners. None of which tickled our fancy.

Another shop had the most dismal selection of Blu-Ray players on the market that I swore to myself that I'll never go to that shop again.

We visited one last shop and yet again I found myself even more unfulfilled, and consequently depressed that I haven't found what I wanted.

Somewhere in between all this we also looked at a new bedroom suite. Specifically a bed head, side drawers and tallboy. Again ,none tickled our fancy.

The vacuum cleaner, we need. So I'm disappointed that nothing did it for me. The Blu-Ray player is not really important at all, so I don't care too much about that. The bedroom suite isn't important for me, but the wife wants it, so in a way, it is important... happy wife, happy life.

In the end I returned home, resorting to google to help me find a vacuum cleaner I like. Discovering that the Blu-Ray player I'd like no longer exists and I'll have to look at another brand with bells and whistles I don't want or need and care to pay for. I didn't bother looking around for a bedroom suite. That's the wife's job. I'll end up with something she doesn't like. If she picks something, it'll be something we both like. Though I suspect I'll leave the window shopping to find whatever it is up to her. I'll stick to my research, go out there, buy it and quickly return home.