WHY WE'RE SHOPPING

My wife and 15 year-old daughter are shopping addicts. It’s unquestionably their favorite way of mother-daughter bonding. By comparison, a request from me to my daughter to go for a hike, my favorite way of father-daughter bonding, is met with rolling eyes and the inevitable question, “How long will it be?” My daughter has been under the tutelage of my wife since she was three and was awarded her Master Shopper Certification at age 11 years, 1 month, 2 days, just a two months shy of the world record 10 years, 11 months, 26 days. I don’t begrudge them this pleasure, but I am envious (maybe that’s why I’m writing this).

My wife and daughter get more pleasure out of shopping for clothes than most people do from a $40 meal, even if they come home with one $15 item (which is rare). Or, as Tammy Faye Bakker once put it, “Shopping is a lot cheaper than a psychiatrist.” When they return home from a shopping foray, my daughter tries on her purchases for me and tells me how much of a discount she got on each. Somehow $20 off a $70 sweater doesn’t have the same impression on me as it did on Abercrombie. But I smile and tell her how “cute” it is. By now I have learned that any other reaction is futile. My wife, by comparison, learned long ago not to seek my approval of her purchases; the first time I see them is when she wears them.

I shop for clothes occasionally. For me, the operative word is “need.” For my wife and daughter, the operative word is “want.” When I define a need, I visit the store that carries the item, purchase it and leave. In, out, done. My wife and daughter never feel satisfied until they have visited every clothing store in the mall and made sure they got the “cutest” items at the lowest prices. The economist in me calls this “maximizing shopping utility.”

I used to point out to my wife and daughter that they can only wear one thing at a time, and that one-fifth of humanity has only one change of clothes. This was a total waste of breath; what was I thinking? Both have closets stuffed to the brim with “cute” clothes. Fortunately these closets are not overly large and so they are forced to recycle (my consolation). Other than shoes, I cannot ever recall them ever recycling a clothing item that was worn out, which has always seemed to me the prime reason for buying new clothes in the first place. I sometimes think our family alone keeps the Salvation Army in business. I know it’s just a matter of time before the IRS audits us and disallows our massive writeoffs to charity.

My only other consolation is that my wife has a fairly advanced case of what she calls “shopping bulimia.” After she buys an article of clothing she brings it home and tries it on again to see if she “really likes it.” Fortunately, she changes her mind on about about 20 percent of her purchases, which she then returns to the store for a refund or credit. This enables her to experience the joy of buying some items without them ultimately costing anything.

Due to their diligence, my wife and daughter have on rare occasions actually had the peak shopping experience they refer to as the Shopping Miracle. This is when an expensive item, sometimes one they’ve had their eyes on for months, has been marked down for the third or fourth time, usually to about one-third of its supposed “retail value.” Such occasions, which generally happen only to truly serious shoppers, are the source of immeasurable delight, satisfaction and conversation.

Over the years I have noticed a pattern to their shopping which delineates the year much the same way that football seasons do. In early May, Pre-season starts. This is when they “need” new summer clothes and good deals can be had on winter clothes. My daughter has grown another inch and “cute” new fashions titillate their shopping senses. They have held off since last season and the call of the mall can no longer be denied.

Pre-season runs until August, when Regular Season gets underway. School is just around the corner and the justification for new purchases has never been stronger. Surely my daughter can’t be seen wearing the same things she wore last year! With the kickoff of Regular Season, my wife and daughter will often migrate beyond their normal shopping territory to other, more distant malls in the metro area. Our local mall can be completely shopped in a solid long day, but other malls open up whole new worlds of shopping opportunities.

Just about the time the Regular Season seems to be winding down, my wife and daughter catch new wind with the arrival of November and Christmas buying. Having largely fulfilled their personal shopping needs, they can now shop for others! It doesn’t get any better than this—shopping and altruism combined. For the next seven weeks they are intensely focused on purchasing just the right gifts for all of our friends and relatives. It is now when all the advance work of the previous three months comes into play and when I have to remind myself that yes, in spite of their continual absence, I do have a family.

Regular Season ends in a flurry of buying in the week preceding Christmas. They shop to the point where the thought of purchasing actually begins to lose some of its allure and then, thankfully, comes Christmas morning—the Big Purge. In a period of 90 minutes, all they have worked for in the previous seven weeks is disgorged from its wrappings and ooohed and aaahed by the relatives. For my wife and daughter, this is the pinnacle of the shopping year, knowing that all those days spent shopping has brought pleasure to so many others.

For a few brief days after Christmas there is a shopping lull. The thought of driving to the mall, of entering another store, of spending more money actually feels a bit distasteful. But then the Christmas gift certificates my daughter has received begin to gnaw their way into her awareness and she is gradually restored to normalcy. Plus the incredible deals at the post-Christmas sales beckon. And so they enter Post-season. It’s back to the mall, back to the shopping, but I can tell by the weariness in their voices and the brevity of their shopping forays that their hearts are not in it the way they were in Regular Season.

Post-season is gratefully short; it runs for only about a month. By the end of January, my wife and daughter are fully sated and ready for a break. The feet sore, the checking account depleted, Off Season begins. For the first few months it is actually a welcome relief—no more malls, no more shopping. Despite the sales, the appeal just isn’t there. But as the weather warms, the coats and sweaters are stashed away. The desire for new adornment is refreshed and renewed with the emergence of spring greenery, and the call of the mall once again beckons in the distance.

Squat Toilets Are Not Meant For Women Over 30 yeARS old!

At my age I thought I'd seen it all. But, after living in Thailand for a year I gave thanks to my mother for seeing that I was potty-trained in the good ole' U.S. of A.

A few days after arriving in Bangkok, I was shopping at Robinson's Department Store. I'd been having some bladder problems, and as many 50-something women find, their lower internal organs begin to drop, droop, sag, bag and demand attention; and we don't ignore it when we feel the familiar sign of wet knickers.

I spotted the unisex sign for "Toilet." I'd heard rumors about squat toilets; thankfully my hotel was kind enough to offer sparkly white Western sit-down toilets. Dare I try this? Logic told me to head back to my hotel, but I had to weigh the time it would take in a tuk-tuk (picture a motorcycle with a bucket seat in the back, held in place by a tin cover), and I didn't think my bladder would appreciate it. I chose the squat toilet. I mean, how bad could it be? This was Robinson's, an international upscale chain.

I peeked inside. I wanted to turn and flee. I gagged. Think Kansas City Stock Yard meets Los Angeles County Landfill. I held my breath until I felt faint. I thought about trying to breathe through my mouth but decided it might be better to smell than to taste. I had to do this. There was no backing out now. I gave my kegel muscles a huge clench and duck-waddled inside.

There it lay, the ubiquitous Eastern squat toilet, waiting for the next feeble foreigner. It was a hole cut in the tile floor, with porcelain inside the hole and a thin porcelain ledge around the top to stand on. The sides were dappled with droplets of doo-doo in various shades of black, brown and ecru.

For my American sisters who have never traveled to a foreign country that offers these contortion contraptions, let my story serve as a high-level travel alert.

I studied this enigma and tried to decide on the best point of entry. I stepped up closer to the beast. Wait! How is a woman supposed to squat on this thing? If you're wearing long pants they need to be pulled down, along with your undies. To where do you pull them? If you pull them down just a little, you'll pee on them. So, you must get into a kind of stooping position, then pull them down just past your butt cheeks and squat. While squatting, you have to pull them down a little more and tuck them under your knees. You also need to hike them up far enough so the bottoms don't touch the filthy floor. Then you squat-walk towards the hole.

But what if you have on a full skirt or muumuu? You have to pull the front of the skirt up and wad it under your chin, then grab the back of the skirt and wrap it around your waist and try to make a cute little square knot to hold everything in place. And while you're trying to maneuver yourself into position you have no idea where your feet are with all the clothes piled up around your torso.

You scan the room for a toilet paper. Nada! You panic! But wait, over in the corner you spot a spigot with a hose and pail ready and waiting for the nice little butt lavage. This is Asia, girlfriend. Forget about using paper to pat your tu-tu dry. Water is the cleanser of choice.

It's now time to conquer your fears — and damp drawers. You're going to need an Olympic score of ten on your mount, and hope your feet hit the indents and not the hole. The porcelain is wet. The floor is wet. There is no paper. You start to pray. You hike up your skirt, wrap it around yourself, drop your drawers and tuck them behind your knees, and make the jump.

You made it! Now you're on and in the squatting position. You wonder if you can keep your balance long enough to empty your bladder. It freezes. It's not going to cooperate. It trickles out one drop at a time, punishing you. Your back hurts, your thighs are screaming and your hamstrings are losing ground. Your purse handles are between your teeth as you try to dig out a piece of tissue with one hand while the other is flailing overhead for balance. One wrong move and you could do a pratfall onto the filthy, wet floor, or, the unthinkable — the hole.

Your bladder quits pouting and finally empties; it's now time to dismount. But how? You realize you have to get up, and you must do it before the store closes. There's nothing to hang on to. Both arms are now flailing about, your teeth are losing their grip on your purse handles, and your clothes are tucked into your wrinkles. You must prepare for your dismount before you fall face forward or ass backwards. You know you'll have no help from your burning thigh muscles. You give a giant heave and fling yourself up and out of the crouched position.

Yes! You made it! I'm sure everyone in the store knew I'd successfully landed my dismount when they heard me yell, "Thank you, Buddha!"

Ultimately, I suppose that the squat toilet is a great idea when it comes to the process of elimination. That is if you're in your 20s and practice yoga every day. I missed these criteria by about thirty years. Suffice it to say I wouldn't want to be caught with my knickers around my ankles with a Candid Camera crew hovering in the wings.

How To Tell When You’ve Been On Too Many Cheap Holidays In Spain

If you want to have a really good time, enjoy the sun and yet not put too much of a hole in your bank balance, you simply cannot do better than a spur-of-the-moment, cheap Spanish holiday. The country has a huge amount to offer and is very welcoming to us visitors.

However, once you’ve got into the swing of things and become a regular Spanish holiday maker, there are a number of important things to remember when you return from your latest cheap holiday in Spain - those habits you learned over all those weeks in the sun might not go down so well when you get home. Here is a list of the top ten habits to break when you get back from a Spanish holiday – including unfortunate hairstyle mistakes and the urge to sleep from 2 till 5.

1) During your cheap holiday to Spain you discovered that adding lemonade, fanta or even coke to red wine is perfectly acceptable, especially at lunchtime. Your UK friends aren’t so sure.

2) On holiday in Spain you could party all night long. Now you can't get over how early bars and clubs shut back home - surely they're shutting just as you should be going out?

3) A bull's head on the wall of a bar is no longer a talking point for you; it's just a regular part of the décor in any normal drinking establishment.

4) When you left the UK for your holiday in Spain you were used to greeting people with a handshake or a nod. These days not giving every new acquaintance ‘dos besos’ (two kisses) seems terribly rude.

5) Since you got home from your latest Spanish holiday, you will only eat lunch after 2pm and would never even think of having your evening meal before 9.

6) You resolve that at 2pm there's no point in going shopping, you might as well just take a siesta until 5 when things are bound to start getting going again.

7) It occurs to you whilst you’re on yet another cheap Spanish holiday that that the mullet isn’t just an unpleasant memory from the 80s - it is a totally acceptable style choice for the modern youngster.

8) You don't see anything wrong with having a couple of beers before lunch if you feel like it – that’s what you did on holiday. Cheap Spanish alcohol was always so tasty in the mornings, after all!

9) After a few too many Spanish holiday knees-ups, you see clapping as an art form and not just a way to express approval. Well – it adds so much to the atmosphere!

10) You have a number of close friends named Jesus, Jose Maria, Maria Jose, Angel, maybe even Inmaculada Concepcion...

But the most important thing to remember when you realize you’ve been on too many cheap Spanish holidays is to just give in and go and book your next one. After all, where else can you feel so relaxed that you take on a whole new lifestyle in the space of a couple of weeks?

World's Top 10 Silly Lorry Stories! IS here

Whether it’s down to lack of sleep, a comical attitude or a desire for distractions on a long journey, for some reason lorries and lorry drivers have been the focus of many of the craziest news stories over the last few years. Here is a countdown of the top 10!

# 10 Fast food attack on ‘go slow’ doctor (Czech Republic)

An Austrian doctor lodged a complaint after a lorry driver threw a cheeseburger at him for driving too slowly. But police told Hannes Kohl, from Vienna, that burger throwing was not an offence. He was hit on the head by the cheeseburger thrown by an overtaking lorry driver through his open car window. Dr Kohl, who was on his way to a medical congress in the Czech Republic, said: ‘I was going slowly but that was no excuse for this outrageous attack.’

# 9 Lorry driver's sausage mistake (Germany)

A German lorry driver set fire to his cab after deciding to cook himself some sausages while driving. Walter Reckling, 46, was cooking two sausages while travelling in Saxony, Germany, when the cooker toppled over. It set fire to the seat, which in turn set fire to the cab of the haulage vehicle. Reckling was treated for smoke inhalation at a local hospital, where he was also found to have been three times over the legal alcohol limit.

# 8 Smashing grand piano (UK)

A crew of delivery men were red-faced after dropping a £45,000 grand piano off a lorry whilst being filmed. Music lovers spent two years raising cash for the Bösendorfer. Proud organiser Penny Adie, 54, was ready with her camera as specialist removers arrived at an arts centre in Devon. But she watched in horror as it fell 14ft off the tail-lift.
Penny said: ‘We are numb.’ Her husband John, 61, added: ‘We’ll have to start fund-raising again.’ The removal firm refused to comment.

# 7 Dodgy lorry accessories (US)

A controversial Virginia lawmaker is trying to introduce new legislation to ban rubber testicles from being fitted to the back of trucks. Truck drivers who sport fake testicles on the back of their haulage vehicles would risk a $250 fine under his proposal. Lionel Spruill, known for his failed attempt in 2005 to ban baggy pants, said he became concerned when he learned that the truck accessories had got larger as their popularity had increased amongst truck drivers. ‘How big are they going to go?’ he said. ‘When will it stop?’

# 6 End of the road for unfortunate camel (Sweden)

Police in Sweden believe a dead camel found on a motorway probably fell off the back of a lorry. Drivers called police after seeing the body on the motorway in southern Sweden and initially police presumed it was a moose that had been hit by a car. Officers were surprised to discover the animal was a camel and believe it must have fallen off the back of a lorry and died as it hit the ground. A police spokesman said: ‘We often come across moose bodies but a camel is a first.’

# 5 Unconventional truck driver (US)

A 50-year-old Californian man pulled a truck with his penis for a British film crew. Martial arts grandmaster Tu Jin-Sheng attached himself to the haulage vehicle and pulled it several yards across a car park in Fremont. Jin-Sheng, originally from Taiwan, is the grandmaster of Iron Crotch, a branch of Qigong said to have 60,000 followers worldwide. Its practitioners are known to lift hundreds of pounds with their genitals to increase energy and sexual performance.

# 4 Excellent mobile phone excuse (Germany)

A German lorry driver escaped a rap for driving while using a mobile phone - after claiming he was using it as an ear warmer. Klein, 43, told the court: ‘I had an earache and it was being made worse because the cab had not heated up yet. So I grabbed the phone that had been on charge and put it to my ear, and that was when I was stopped by police.’ The court accepted his claim after he produced an itemised telephone bill proving he had not been using the phone at the time he was stopped.

# 3 Lorry driver shunts man in a Smart car down the motorway (Germany)

A lorry driver shunted a tiny Smart car two miles down a busy German motorway because he didn't know it was wedged to his lorry. The lorry driver, 53, pushed the tiny car driven by Andreas Bolga, 48, along the busy road and said ‘I couldn't believe it when I got out of the lorry and saw there was a car stuck on the front of it,’ he said. Mr Bolga said: ‘I tried to drive away but couldn't. I looked up through my sun roof and could see the lorry driver, but he didn't notice me.’

# 2 Truck driver shunts man in a wheelchair down the motorway (US)

A disabled man was taken for a 50mph ride along a US highway after his wheelchair got jammed in the grille of a truck. The back of the 21-year-old man's wheelchair was scooped up as he passed in front of a truck leaving a petrol station, Michigan State Police said. After four miles, the truck driver pulled over at a truck stop where police caught up and told him about the man on his front end. The man was unhurt - but still attached to the front of the truck. Police said he told them ‘it was quite a ride’, and complained only that he had spilled his soda.

# 1 Prisoner postage (Austria)

A plucky prisoner wrapped himself in a large parcel and posted himself to freedom from a jail on a lorry. Bosnian Muradif Hasanbegovic, 36, was serving a seven-year sentence for robbery in the Karlau prison near Graz, Austria. He packed himself up in a parcel and other convicts loaded him onto a lorry. Once clear of the prison he broke out of the parcel, jumped off the back of the lorry and fled. The lorry driver told police: ‘I noticed the tarpaulin had a hole in it just as the prison called me and asked 'Have you noticed anything funny? We are kind of missing a prisoner'. Hasanbegovic has not been seen since.

ABOUT LORRIES N THE LIMELIGHT

What do you think of when you picture a lorry? Perhaps one of these lorries from popular culture. They might not wear giant sunglasses or have punch-ups with the paparazzi, but that doesn’t make these superstars any less well known.

From the Coca Cola Christmas haulage truck from the TV ad to the mysterious characters of the tongue twister ‘Red Lorry Yellow Lorry‘, here is a reminder of some of the most famous trucks, lorries and general haulage vehicles of all time.

1) Red Lorry Yellow Lorry

Originally a British tongue twister, you may be interested to know that ‘Red Lorry Yellow Lorry’ is also a rock band that was formed in Leeds in 1981. Whilst there are no known lorry or lorries attached to the phrase, this is certainly a famous lorry concept which is entrenched in the British psyche. Red lorry yellow lorry red lorry yellow lorry … It’s even hard to type!

2) Long-distance Clara’s juggernaught

As the song goes,

Long Distance Clara, shifts the gears
Long Distance Clara, she safely steers
Long Distance Clara, slams on the brakes
Long Distance Clara, accelerates
Long Distance Clara driving round the bend
Hot dinner waiting at her journeys end
Long Distance Clara, driving down the road
Always on time and never late

- Part of the theme tune to the adorable pre-school cartoon ‘Pigeon Street’.

3) Fire Engines

Ok, so we don’t really call them ‘lorries’, but we sometimes call them ‘trucks’, and that’s really what they are. The real hero in the world of over-sized vehicles, this red bundle of bravery is like a giant red angel, transporting fire-fighters to the scene of the blaze and providing them selflessly with access to the burning building with its trusty ladder, water with its hose and a whole host of other equipment for battling the flames.

4) Coca Cola Christmas Truck

You remember the ad with all those beautiful Christmas - themed haulage trucks? Perhaps this will jog your memory:

‘Holidays are coming, holidays are coming
Tis the season
Watch out, look around
Something's coming, coming to town
Do do do do do
Always Coca Cola.
Something magic, in the night
Can't you see it, shining bright!
La la la la la la la la la la
Holiday refreshment's what we bring
Tis the season, it's always the real thing!
Always Coca Cola!’

- A heart-warming Christmas treat which almost makes up for a million rotting teeth.

5) Optimus Prime and the Transformers Movie

The basis of the film is as follows: a long time ago, far away on the planet of Cybertron, an alien civil war was being waged between the two races of robots - the noble hero Autobots led by the wise Optimus Prime, and the devious evil Decepticons commanded by the dreaded Megatron - for control over the Allspark, a mystical talisman that would grant unlimited power to whoever possessed it. For some reason, the Autobots and the evil Decepticons are able to change into a variety of objects, including cars, trucks, planes and other technological creations, but tend to spend their time masquerading as enormous haulage trucks when inhabiting the Earth.