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Manila Bulletin devider Opinion devider Shopping as therapy

Shopping as therapy

Published Jul 15, 2021 12:12 am
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza As my friend Armi puts it so eloquently, “Shopping is better than sex!” She said this as she pushed three jumbo carts filled to the brim and headed to the cashier’s at Duty Free Philippines. Money is no object, she could have added, unlike sex, which you pay for in exchange for love or romance or procreation, whatever. Men will agree that women enjoy shopping because it’s a form of reward, psychological as well as pecuniary, for the work they put in, like housework, for which they receive no compensation. Just as women go crazy over lingerie, shoes and bags, cosmetics, trinkets and jewelry, guys cannot resist buying car parts and accessories – their car or cars being a sex object, if you ask me – as well as gadgets and anything mechanical, something that comes with wheels and an instruction manual. Dave owns a two-car garage which is not where he shelters his three cars, the garage being where he stores all the goods he keeps buying and never gets to use – those boxes are in pristine condition. When I told another friend about Dave, she said her husband was exactly like Dave. “Our garage is his warehouse for everything from house tools to barbecue cookers, from DIY furniture to beach umbrellas. He keeps buying, then forgets them.” In locked-down times, shopping – at last the malls are more open now – is the great adventure indoors. After nearly two years, I felt so deprived that SPLURGE AND SHOP! was all I could hear my conscience calling when I decided to go hunting last week. To cut to the chase, I bought clothes for my sons (who hate shopping for the sake of shopping)  and the prettiest summer dresses for 10-year-old Alli. The little girl has been shopping online since she was 9, ordering yarn, needles, arts and crafts stuff, materials for making a voodoo doll (to be used against the 6-year-old bully who calls her Até). Is online shopping more fun than going to the mall? Don’t ask Alli, she’s too young to be allowed into the malls. And what did I end up buying for myself? A soap dish made of plastic and bamboo (P79.95) and a child-size bench for the bathroom (P175.95). Cheap.

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