By Ratna Manucha
It’s a beautiful day in October
And I confess I’m totally sober
But the incessant beep of the phone
With messages of discounts galore
Push me gleefully towards the door
So heigh, ho! Pick up my bags
And off to the shops I go!
The classic dictionary definition of a shopaholic is a person who has a compulsive desire to shop and spends quite a lot of time and money doing it.
But there is a medical term for a shopaholic too. It’s called ‘Oniomania’. This comes from the Greek ‘onio’ which means ‘for sale’ and mania, which means ‘insanity’.
And we have social media to thank for this. Of course, shopaholics must have existed in earlier times, too, but there wasn’t much to shop in the good old days, or was there? We didn’t celebrate Women’s Day, Mothers’ Day, Fathers’ Day, Friendship Day and the most important of them all – Valentine’s Day! You know that day when fresh flowers spray painted in garish colours and teddy bears in various sizes fly off the shelves faster than one can say ‘Jack Robinson’.
I confess I’m a shopaholic. Actually you can’t blame me. Seriously, it’s not my fault. Here I am sitting peacefully at home, when the phone beeps. It’s a message. The jewellery and watch store is giving a ten per cent discount to all favoured customers for today only. Darn! I’ll have to go. After all they have classified me as a favoured customer! This warms the cockles of my heart. I can’t disappoint them, now, can I?
It’s another matter that once I do enter the store, I feel a rush of adrenaline and I generally will not be able to leave without buying something. Of course, I have a couple of watches but one more won’t harm, will it? Maybe not a watch then, how about a ring? A new, shiny bauble might help to brighten up my work weary hands, not to mention the fact that it will be a conversation starter and maybe, just maybe I will be the envy of my Kitty group once again. Lately, I seem to be losing my zing.
On the flip side, I do sometimes suffer from guilt pangs after I have emptied my wallet and the new purchase has been allotted a teeny tiny space in my already overflowing wardrobe or locker or shoe rack…whatever the case may be (don’t look surprised…yes, all three are overflowing), the excitement dissipates and I am left feeling quite empty, like my wallet.
The other day my friend wanted to buy a pair of shoes so for lack of something better to do I tagged along, too. She bought one pair and I found myself standing at the billing counter with three pairs in my hand. You see, I had been wanting a pink pair for so long. Finally I found it today. And guess what? They had the same pair in blue and lilac, too. So, I bought all three. You want to know what I will do with a lilac pair of shoes? Well, Nikka’s sister–in–law’s brother will get married one of these days and knowing them, there is sure to be a dress code for the wedding, and one can never be too prepared. Yes, I know the wedding is not till next year, but time flies and I don’t want to be caught unawares.
The other day I was flipping through my old autograph book. (Remember in school we all had that little rectangular book with multi-coloured pages which we would thrust on unsuspecting people who crossed our paths? And the ‘ooohs’ and ‘aaahs’ that followed as we pored over their written words!) The pages had yellowed with age but one particular page caught my eye. It was my grandfather who had written in his calligraphic handwriting –
‘Walk thine own garden grounds,
Not envying others’ larger bounds
For well thou knowest
‘Tis not extent that makes happiness
But sweet content’.
Did he have some sort of a premonition about his granddaughter? Nah. I toss that thought out of the window.
Maybe I need to do a turnaround and try to follow in my darling Grandpa’s advice.
And then my birthday month rolls around and the messages on my phone line up…from the clothes store, the shoe store, and sundry other places which I may have visited during the past year. My heart skips a beat and I am all geared up for the days ahead. This is going to be one busy month.
Sustainable shopping. Carbon footprint. Low environment impact.
What’s that?
(Ratna Manucha is an educationist and an award winning author of fact, fiction and text books for children and young adults. She is the author of 34 published books)
