As many of you may have figured out by now, I am a bit of a nerd. I LOVE the hard sciences with the exception of physics. I just don’t understand it so well, although I can apply it to everyday life..I know… WEIRD. I never really have understood what they call the soft sciences. For those of you I have REALLY confused now.. the hard sciences are your chemistry, biology, biochemistry, physics, etc. The soft sciences are sociology, psychology and I usually put philosophy in this category as well. I am sure you are now wondering what the heck does this have to do with shopping…? well, I am getting there, give me a minute and you too will see just what it mentally DOES have to do with shopping…

As long as I can remember, my mother has tried to force me into shopping for clothes and enjoying it. I do not ever remember enjoying it in the least little bit. I especially hate having to go to the dressing room, try on something, model it for her to tell me, “no, it really isn’t you.” Duh, I tried to tell her that. Did she listen? Obviously not, but you know how mother’s are.. mother’s know best

Not only do I not enjoy shopping, but I am an Uncle Scrooge when it comes to my money. I HATE to spend it, I always have, and honestly get it straight from my momma’s daddy’s genes. It has to be inherited because everyone says I act just like he did. I know I didn’t get it from my father or his side of the family, they spend money as soon as they make it if they don’t have a spouse that is willing to watch their finances. My brother is unfortunately a spend-thrift as well, although he is now learning the hard way about credit card finances. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean I won’t spend the money if I NEED to, I just don’t like to spend it.

When I go to the grocery store, I may come home with only 20 items, but I promise you I have spent no less than an hour and a half deliberating if I reallllllly needed those items or not. I also learned that to keep from buying a bunch of junk food, I will allow myself one treat, and one treat only. If I see something I want more than something else…then I have to put the other item back. I know it sounds crazy, but it does seem to work for me, and keeps me from eating only bad stuff which tastes just ooooh so good. The experts also say never to go to the grocery store hungry, and this is true, but if you MUST do so, then what I mentioned above will actually help you from buying up the whole store. I also create myself a preset limit on how much I will allow myself to spend for each trip, and try to keep a mental tally on it, so that helps as well. You have to do, what you have to do on a tight budget.

Then, there is the infamous shopping for clothes. You will shortly read just exactly how nerdy I now am. I am very paranoid about trying on clothes. Why? Simply because you do not know who tried them on before you, and you KNOW they haven’t been washed between those try-on’s. I became like this in middle school, so it had nothing to do with working in a pharmacy, but oh, after working in the pharmacy, it is SOOO much worse. Any article of clothes that I see a spot on or make-up on the collar, I immediately rule out for trying on. There are just soooo many contact dermatitis issues out there, not to mention what kind of viral/bacterial/fungal spores are lingering around the collar of the fabric. And let’s not even discuss swimsuits. All I can say is, ARHHH! Well, I think I WILL comment on them anyway since it’s almost as bad as trying on pants or shorts.

Do you KNOW how many people do NOT wear underwear out there? or if they do, only a THONG! OMG, how disgusting is that? Are you now grossed out too? I know most experts say you cannot usually catch sexually transmitted diseases or conditions from such things as restrooms or clothing, but this is not always true. You can actually catch lice, scabies, and a few STD’s through this method. When my little brother had just started junior high, he actually caught a cureable STD from the boy’s bathroom at school. See, we went to a very small school, so the junior high AND high school were all in one building, and the men’s room he frequented happened to be in the lunchroom area. Since my brother was a summer baby, he had JUST turned 12 when he entered the 7th grade (the beginning of junior high at our school). My mom knew where he was at all times when not at school, and then at school, he was constantly under MY foot. So when he finally came to my mom bawling about not knowing what was wrong with himself, she took him to our family doctor. The doctor interviewed my brother, discovered that he had NEVER had sex, but had picked up an STD by using the men’s restroom, which he frequented thanks to irritable bowel syndrome. I won’t say anymore about that, but now I am sure you understand just how he picked it up. I know it is harder for ladies to catch such diseases from toilets, BUT now you see why I am REALLY paranoid about swimsuits, pants, etc.

Moving on to shopping for shoes… this is my final disgust. My mom at least forewarned us kids to ALWAYS wear some sort of sock/nylon/etc when trying on shoes. You just do not know how many people out there have fungal foot infections. And yes, anytime someone has tried on that shoe with no socks on and has athlete’s foot, you have now become a prime target for that dirty little fungus once you have slipped you pretty little foot into the slipper of nastiness. And just to further disgust you, you can also pick up toenail infections this way too. Those little fungi are just waiting and saying, “I’ll get you my pretties, and your little nails too..”

Once I get past the trying-on point of clothing and shoes, I am back to the point of deciding just how bad I really want or need the article in question. I may walk around the store for an hour just to decide. At the same time, I am sure I am making the security personnel jumpy because I walk round and round because I can’t make up my pretty little head. BUT, if I do decide not to get the product, I make sure I put it back where I found it because then I know security has usually watched me enough to see that I have simply decided not to purchase their product. From working in a grocery store, I know that by making a product disappear all of a sudden from hand when you’re not in the area where you picked it up, makes security and managers go nuts and start immediately searching to see just where you either hid the item on yourself or where you discarded it on the shelf.

It’s okay, go ahead and call me paranoid. Go ahead and call me OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder). I will not take offense to it, I will just laugh it off. I work a pharmacy, so I have seen and heard it all, trust me. And yes, by-the-way, I AM a little OCD, but I think being just a tad that way makes me a more wary person. I think most people working in pharmacies are that way, we simply like to count things LOL.

And for one little last bit of personal advice, when you get home, throw those new clothes in the washer and make sure you lysol the inside of those shoes before you wear them because you never know who has “walked a mile” in those shoes.