Shopping

Transcript of a conversation that once took place on this horrendous subject.

Fri 26 Jan 2001

From: Brian

Subject: E-Shopping

I have to take Kath food shopping even though we did it last year a couple of times, I'm a bit peeved about it I can tell you. Anyway I've heard it said that you can now do that mundane shite on the Internet. Have any of you actually done this? If so please tell me of your experiences. I must admit I'm a tad sceptical about it as I've never seen a PC on any of the Fruit & Mushroom stalls down the market, so how would say Dave my butcher know that I wanted e-beef or e-bacon?

Hope you can help cos shopping gives me the fucking arsehole (I now have about 60% of people at work using that phrase)

From: Mike

Subject: Re: E-Shopping

E-shopping is a gross abuse of the internet!

I am appalled that this vile and despicable activity known as "shopping" has infiltrated the internet. I mean, Sandra does it at home when I could be using the computer for Shite. Never, ever, EVER, let Kath get her mits on the computer for purposes of [spits on floor] shopping, otherwise you'll never see pooclub again.

I'm sorry Brian but, until I come up with a better plan, you'll just have to put up with the 2 days a year shopping trip and be thankful that it's not a lot, lot worse, 'cos it very easily could.

Monday 29 Jan 2001

From: Mike

Subject: Today's Topic: Wives And Shopping

OK pooclub, today we face the most challenging Today's Topic yet. I'm sure you'll all have had as disturbed weekend as I, worrying about poor Brian's shopping trip on Friday.

Getting dragged out shopping with the wife is undoubted the greatest bane in the life of your red-blooded Englishman, and invariably evokes pity and a sense of horror from the victim's compatriots.

But what can we do about it? I've had sleepless nights over the events that took place on Friday, exacerbated because I felt that the advice I gave Brian was less than satisfactory. So, our task today is to solve this problem once and for all. I know it is a mighty undertaking, and we're all probably still feeling a little Topic'd out from the heavy theological matters that I set you last week, but I promise you, if we can get this one licked, I'll go easy on you for the rest of the week and set some nice light Today's Topics.

My normal strategy for getting out of doing something that I don't want to do is simply to do it badly. At worst, I will get a second chance, but if I totally fuck that up too then I'll never get asked to do the task again. OK, I'll get grief for failing it but when you weigh that up against the grief I'd suffer doing the task for the rest of my life, I'm sure you will agree that it's grief well spent.

But that tactic simply doesn't work with shopping. The reason being that when a man goes shopping with his wife, it is not he who does any of the actual shopping. No, the wife does the lot. The man is expected to follow her around, pretend to look interested and cast his honest opinion on the items the wife is considering buying. Now, the thing that really baffles me is this: no matter how much advice the wife elicits from the man, and no matter how constructive this advice is, she will not, come the time of purchase, take the blindest bit of notice of it. This is why fucking the job up doesn't work - there is nothing to fuck up! The man simply has to BE there.

But why?

Now the most useful person in a man's life, his wife's best friend who is invariably a woman. Fortunately, when going on shopping campaigns, the wife will prefer to be accompanied by this friend than her husband. And when the best friend is not available, the wife will choose her mother - all very good!

But there come times when neither of these fine people are available and the wife will, instead of putting the shopping trip off 'til another day, resort to her third choice. And this is the situation we need to avoid. As Brian pointed out last week, this scenario can occur as often as twice in a single year!

So, pooclub, what is the solution? How can this terrible blight be reduced to zero outbreaks per year?

From: Brian

Subject: RE: Today's Topic: Wives And Shopping

Mike! You have invaded my brain and taken the exact thoughts I have on this subject out and put them in print, amazing! Unfortunately I have no ready answer, all I do know is that all western women must have a 'masochistic' gene (apart from that pig in lipstick Carol Voerman) because they must know that all such shopping trips invariably end up in arguments and huffs. They know it, we know it, yet it is always them who want to repeat the experience over and over again, mental or what?

My own experience tells me that no matter what you do to get out of the 'Shopping trip with the Missus' it will be instantly forgotten and forgiven when the next 'Shopping trip with the missus' is planned and organised (solely by her).

Oh the torture of the question, "Which one do you prefer?" or "What colour will go best?" or even "Mushy or Garden?"

Indeed the amputation of both legs has not got me out of them.

From: Mike

Subject: RE: Today's Topic: Wives And Shopping

Indeed! And what really gets me is this: why does it take SOOOOOO long to choose something? If a bloke were to go out and buy his own bedroom curtains, he'd go straight to a curtain shop (note the singular!) glance at the selection of curtains and immediately pick out the best ones for the bedroom, take them home and put them up straight away.

A wife will agonise for ages about them and then leave the shop curtainless and visit EVERY SODDIN' CURTAIN SHOP IN TOWN until she gets "just the right curtains". Her poor gibbering husband who has been dragged round this hell is now in no fit state to put up the curtains and may take as long as several weeks to recover before he can attempt the job of putting them up.

Where's the sense in that, eh?