April 12, 2007

THERE are many things I would rather do than go shopping, chief among them being nailed to a cold pavement in the middle of a town square while having my kneecaps haphazardly drilled into by a drunk labourer.

Or, just so you get the point, I would gladly swap an afternoon at the Trafford Centre for being trussed up naked like a Sainsbury’s chicken, smeared in cheap strawberry jam and then dumped beneath a recently disturbed nest of very angry hornet wasps.

Still not convinced?

Make me sleep in barbed wire pyjamas. Put foil on my fillings. Remove the top of my scalp and scrape my exposed brain with sandpaper.

Anything – anything – than an afternoon “at the shops”.

I mean, shopping: Why would you?

I have trousers to wear and shoes to walk in. My coat still doesn’t leak and the arms haven’t fallen off my shirts. And besides, do I look like I have money to burn? The bar IS open and the football IS on, you know.

I have no time for the so-called metrosexual man who whiles away his Saturday afternoon swapping moisturiser tips with his girlfriend.

I can’t tell my Moschino from my Manolo Blahniks (whatever on earth they are – Argentinean central defenders?).

I couldn’t give a monkey’s about Beckham’s latest skirt disaster (or whatever those skirt-things are actually called). And the next spotty youth who offers me a store card when I’m only buying a pair of socks should book himself in at the dentist’s.

Something I’ve learned at the grand old age of 36 is that no matter how often your girlfriend insists that shopping is a) worthwhile and b) fun is that they are a) lying and b) lying.

For instance, in the lexicon of the English language, who do you really think came up with the word “bargain”? I’d lay money on it being a woman.

But it’s a nonsense word. There is no such thing as a “bargain”. No such thing! How on earth can handing money over for something for slightly less than you might have handed over elsewhere a “bargain”? Argh! It’s not! It’s still bloody handing over money!

And then there are the inevitable and much lamented problems of going shopping with your other half. You don’t want to be there, she doesn’t want you to be there, but if you don’t show even the slightest enthusiasm for Something You DEFINITELY Do Not Want To Do then your bedroom later on suddenly becomes chillier than that bloody Smeg fridge she wants to buy.

Look, love. It’s really quite simple. The fridge we have already works. Imelda Marcos looks at your shoe collection with envy. And you’ve got so many clothes that people keep coming into our house thinking it’s the local branch of Top Shop.

I really don’t want to spend the afternoon being accused of looking at other girl’s backsides while you do a circuit route of the shopping centre trying on everything three times before you decide the first one was the best.

I just don’t need to go shopping. You don’t need to go shopping. And we, certainly, don’t need to go shopping.

What do you mean your clothes are falling off? Do you hear me complaining about that? No, of course not.

Now find the remote control and get that bloody QVC turned off. The football’s about to start…