October 14, 2007~~11:14 a.m.
Men and looking for things...

Last night we had the excitement of a police helicopter circling directly over our house for about 45 minutes. We made a call to find out what was going on and were told that they were looking for a "male subject". Must have been a guy flying the thing because the search seemed exactly like the way Shoe or the husband will look for something by just kind of turning around a few times, scanning the room at eye-level, and then proclaiming the thing "not there".

Men are weird like that. It's odd because they tend to be so analytical about things, so methodical and rational. My husband can do the grocery shopping in about 20 minutes. He gets in, gets the items on the list, and gets out. He never comes home with the random stuff I'll end up picking up because it was on sale. He never stocks up on something because the price was better than what he'll get next week. Just, get in, get one week of food, get out, get home. Period. Trips to the mall are the same. Need a shirt? Park the car, enter the store, go directly to the sort of shirts you are looking for, pick one, pay for it, leave. Easy.

I, on the other hand, would spend several hours browsing and bring home several bags of clothes, some of which I would be uncertain about keeping, but needed to bring home in order to buy more time to think about it. I cannot bear to leave a corner of the store unvisited, lest I miss out on some great thing I never knew I needed until I saw it.

This, of course, is why we are in constant posession of clothes that still have tags on them that fit no one (or have been deemed unwearable due to ugliness), but also why we can attend last-minute birthday parties without having to stop to get a present and why we're usually finished with most of the Christmas shopping by the day after Thanksgiving.

I love a bargain. I love watching things sit on clearance, keeping a price in my head that I'm willing to pay for them, and waiting. But then I hate it when someone comes along who is less keen about what leftover out-of-season crap is worth and buys my stuff out from under me.

I don't get to do it as much now that I work so much. When I was an at-home mom, I lived for the bargain hunt. I miss the thrill of the chase. On the upside, I'll be retired in... oh, say... 20 years? And on the income of a retired teacher with less than 30 years of service, I'll be needing those bargains, big time.

~Alice