One of my favorite past times is online shopping. I like this even more than I like reading Courtney Stodden’s terrifically terrible yet chaotically compelling tweets. I am feverishly fascinated by her obvious obsession with alliteration–context and comprehension be damned!
But forget scary Courtney Stodden and her creepy middle-aged husband for a minute. Let’s talk about happier, more pleasant things like shopping. I have a feeling this is going to be “Weird Confession Wednesday” because the kind of embarrassing thing about my online shopping habit is I rarely actually purchase anything. I can spend hours at night happily scouring websites for all kinds of things–clothes, furniture, art, and kids’ stuff. I will go through the motions, find the right size, choose a color and put it in my shopping basket.
Then at the end of the night, I might have four shopping baskets brimming with cool finds from etsy, plus sale items from one place, bedding from somewhere else, and a stockpile of birthday party gifts. (Our latest go-to gift is HexBugs. And since we go to lots of boys’ parties we really should keep a supply handy.)
Then I just log off and, poof, there go the shopping baskets. Some stores actually keep the shopping basket stocked for you and send reminders that you abandoned your cart in virtual aisle 4. But many of them just disappear into the internets. So I can start with a clean slate the next night.
Lately, I have been collecting boots online. Since I have worn my current boots for about 10 years and have literally walked the heal off of them, I really am in search of some new boots. But I’m finding it hard to make a decision. (I’m guessing that doesn’t surprise you.) Since I’m having a hard time finding them in the real world, I am collecting them online. So far I have two pairs of dressy black ones, one beautiful pair of gray wedges and a casual camel flat pair. And while they all look great online, I can’t go through with the Purchase button and so I still don’t have any to wear to work tomorrow. I think this scenario might provide some insight into my fear of commitment and the fact that I’m just not very good at dressing myself.
I did find a great pair of Hunter-esque Steve Madden boots this weekend. It is sunny 300 days a year here so I’m sure it will be hard to get a return on my relatively small investment, but they were on sale and they are just so cute! And they have an orange zipper up the back!
- A recent real life purchase. No rain in the forecast for weeks.
So, there you have it…sometimes I actually make the purchase, but 9 times out of 10 the fun for me is just in the online hunting and gathering. It is a good thing that my shopping Jones is satisfied by pretending to buy things or my family would be living on Ramen noodles and you’d be able to watch me on an episode of Hoarders. A virtual hoarding addiction is way easier to hide from the neighbors and much less embarrassing when the boys want to invite some one over for a play date.
