Recreational Shopping: A change of habit

Spent most of today hanging out with two old friends. All afternoon, we bucketed around stores in the shiny new shopping plazas of the western suburbs. Specifically, we wanted to shop at Pier One and Target. We weren’t after anything specific: we planned just to peruse the stores as an afternoon’s outing. In a word, we were indulging in recreational shopping. Shopping for the fun of shopping.

In times past, an activity like this would lead to the diddling alway of great sums of money. I do enjoy (even covet) much of the stuff at Pier One, and Target is a posted danger zone for me. Today, though, I found myself not wanting to buy much. Matter of fact, you could say I couldn’t bring myself to reach for the AMEX card.

Pier One had some very pretty throw pillows, which I admired greatly. VickyC bought a pair, absolutely gorgeous, soon to look splendid on her sofa: marked down significantly. Also at a good mark-down, Kathy got an attractive desk lamp, which she’s been needing since she kiped her husband’s for her own desk. But you know…my sofa has four perfectly fine pillows on it. Old, maybe; a little stale to my eye, since I’ve been looking at them for several years, but clean and in good repair. A couple of years ago, I would have justified buying new pillows on the grounds that a) I like them;  b) it’s time to update “the look; and therefore c) I need them.

In the year or two since I’ve dedicated myself to a more frugal and simpler lifestyle, something strange has happened. Where before want would morph to need, now something has to be a real need before I feel that I want it. It’s not a deliberate, conscious change. It’s a change of habit that has gone on long enough to become part of my psyche.

At Target, I did buy one thing that to an outside observer might look like an impulse buy: a rope hammock. A couple of years ago, I bought one of those arc-shaped wooden hammock slings from Costco, the trees here at the Funny Farm still being too young to support the beloved old Eddie Bauer hammock that had survived into advanced decrepitude. The Costco hammock is made of sturdy outdoor fabric, allegedly an improvement over rope. It’s not. A fabric hammock collects dust, leaves, bird droppings, seeds, and various other debris. Whenever it rains, a puddle materializes in the low point; tipping the hammock to pour the water out digs a hole in the desert landscape below it. And a fabric hammock just can’t compare to rope in the comfort department: that weather-proof fabric is hot, ungainly, and ungiving. 

For quite some time, I’ve known Pawley’s Island has a hammock that probably will fit in the odd-sized Costco stand. And it’s one of the things I’ve planned to buy before the salary runs out. I’ve just been too lazy to order it online, a process I view, perversely enough, as a bit of a hassle. So when I spotted Target’s version, made of cotton (not a saggy artificial fiber), I grabbed it. If it won’t fit, Target will take it back.

I used my old hammock until it fell apart, something like twelve or fifteen years, both for loafing and for laying out laundered clothes to dry flat. The once barren yard now has plenty of shade, and I know I’ll use a more comfortable, less annoying rope number a lot more than I do the leaf-ridden, dusty, clammy fabric thing. So in this case, I think “want” actually does rise to the level of “need.” I need something to put in that fancy wooden hammock stand, so it won’t go to waste and so I can enjoy laying in the yard when the weather’s balmy. Which around here is most of the time.

The other day on the way home from a client’s place of business, I passed Scottsdale Fashion Square, formerly a regular hang-out. And it struck me that it’s been a good two years since I’ve been in that place. Then I realized I haven’t been in the tony Biltmore fashion plaza for many a moon, either. I simply have dropped the habit of shopping for fun. I no longer bat around stores to pass the time of day.

This, I expect, will be a permanent change. 

Is there anything that’s changed in your habits, either because of the current economy or as a result of a deliberate decision to alter the direction of your life?