Shopping and Buying - What's the Difference Anyway?

Walk into any mall and you will find two kinds of people. One kind will be in a hurry and swagger past you with the confidence of a past master, someone who has been through the entire mall and survived it (this sentence can be replaced by someone who has been through hell and survived it), but this option is available for only those who are listening to death metal and are fully clad in leather at precisely this moment.

The other kind, will be walking like prisoners who have had heavy balls clanked onto their ankles for some twenty five years (or more) with a glazed look in their eyes which says one of these things in bold (add bold for cosmetic effect):

What did I do?
Can I give it back?
What do I do, now?

Alternately, they will be desperately scurrying around with a ‘lost in the woods’ look with their accompaniment for the day, wondering how to feel not guilty about the things they have shopped (warning for unfortunate first time accompaniments: individuals showing these characteristics are hardcore shoppers and will be prone to physical violence at the slightest suggestion of returning anything shopped).

If you have experienced this and not found it confusing, but just nodded your head and walked ahead, you do not need to read this article. If you have experienced it and found it confusing, then welcome to the interesting world of buying and shopping.

What is the difference between buying and shopping, you say? Allow me to ela (add groan here) borate.

Buying:

When a person buys something, its actually something they need, I mean, something they cannot live without. Like you know, milk, butter, vegetables! And it doesn’t mean that people only require these daily things. They also sometimes do actually ‘require’ the below said things for the reasons in the brackets:

Buying Clothes:

Reason # 1: Have a new job, and want to wear formal attire at least for the first month, then its back to pyjamas with smileys over a D&G shirt.

Reason # 2: Getting back to work at an age commonly said to be ‘old enough to retire’, and suddenly found out that your attire is not acceptable/not in fashion/doesn’t fit you.

Reason # 3: You have this hot date in an hour and like your ‘latest’ shirt and trousers went out with Elizabeth Taylor (preferably with you in them, but that’s another matter, and no offence to Liz Taylor, she still rocks).

Buying MP3 Players/Cell Phones/Cameras/CDs

Reason: You finally have succeeded in going to that once-in-a-lifetime (also considered as saved-for-a-lifetime) trip to that place you saw only in postcards and buying a camera is actually an sub-investment to make the best of the investment you are making to go to that place.

The top reason for buying MP3 players is because you are (again) going out of home and you don’t know how interesting that place will be, so you can find solace in music while thinking how much you actually spent to come to that place.

In the Buyer’s world, a person buys a cellphone only when either they lose their previous one, people snigger at their cellphones or because they do not want to spend money on buying a camera and a MP3 player individually.

Buying Home Appliances: A person buys a home appliance only when they really just cannot do without it. Chief among must buy home appliances are:

Mixer Grinder: A bachelor’s mate! Single people should not even think of living their life alone without a mixer grinder if they are supposed to cook for themselves. When you can see onions and sundry vegetables sliced, diced and cut in a systematic manner under the legendary spikes of steel, you will realize the true meaning of ‘poetry in motion’. And of course, it does work well for couples and families as well. I mean, a mixie is like the doorbell; it just has to be there. There are no two ways about it.

Pressing Iron: Now, this is really necessary. I mean, how long can you go to the laundry in seven days old clothes to get rich, nicely pressed clothes to be presentable in the office?

The reason why I haven’t added washing machine to this list is because it is not a pressing and urgent need. I mean, people can hire housemaids to wash clothes, they do not need a washing machine.

The reason I have not added refrigerators to this list is that people can make do without a refrigerator for most of the times, just get how much vegetables you want per day, how difficult is that anyway?

Shopping:

Simply put, shopping is like God. It can be done for many reasons, but all these reasons are just a name for the main reason, and that reason itself can be described in just one word (believe me, I do like to keep things simple and all that jazz, but yet) – ‘inexplicable’.

Some reasons I have caught for shopping are:

‘It was a steal’ – I think that’s a set sentence of the database of compulsive shoppers. We get to hear it a lot.

‘Everyone’s seen what I wear/use/have’ – Dudes and sweethearts, give me a break. Do you actually think that the world is all blacked out and you are the only ones with a yellow-and-white halo where everyone reveres you? Like, even though my life is my movie, am not the main actor dude, its my collection agent!

‘It’s So Cute!’ – I always maintain that sane people should not and cannot argue with this term ‘cute’. Cute is not good, cute is not bad, cute is not advantageous, cute is not disadvantageous, cute is not beautiful, cute is not ugly, cute is not subtle, cute is not vulgar, cute is not class, cute is not crass, cute is not sexy, cute is not sensual. (I think this proves to you that I have a good enough vocab, and yet, I cannot find the perfect definition of the word cute).

So, now that I have ranted and raved about shopping and buying, the festive season is just around the season. I would like you to read this, shake your head, not take yourself seriously, and laugh out loud for once while driving that minivan to get gifts for your family.