Shopping for Clothes, and Why it is Always a Nightmare

The title was going to read : "Shopping for Clothes, and Why it is Always a Nightmarish Hell-beast of an Experience" but apparently that is too long.

Also, you might have a pleasant understanding of clothes shopping, or experience none of the inconveniences I do. If so, I think I might hate you.

1. There are always people. So many people. The only days I agree to go shopping for any great number of things (like, for instance, clothes) are days where I think "hey, it's a great day to go shopping, because there will be no people there." Those days are frequently days where everyone else has had the exact same thought and the stores are packed. Or, if they aren't, they feel like it, because this can't go well for you, no, never. It doesn't help, of course, that I have social anxiety and would be perfectly happy if I never had to leave my house ever. But, unfortunately, I have not yet reached this stage of my life. So I have to go out and face the world. Except the world always insists on being near me and touching me. I also hate it when strangers try to engage me in conversation. "But Winona," you might be saying, "haven't you ever had a great conversation with a stranger, and become friends? Isn't that a wonderful experience, filled with magic and cookie dough?" Fair enough, but let us consider statistics: about one in twenty-eight people is actually interesting. The other twenty-seven are the kind who, oh, you know, engage you in conversation when you're shopping for clothes, or paying for things at the counter. I dislike this.

2. Nothing fits, ever. I almost always go to thrift or consignment stores, so there is a point against me, but even in department stores or wherever else you can shop for clothes, I am still female. Being female means it is impossible to purchase clothes that fit well off the rack. It's like buying a suit, but with every article of clothing that isn't a scarf or a muumuu. Here is how trying on clothes goes: get piece of clothing in what you think is your size, talk to fitting room guard, pass diabolical test, go into fitting room, try on clothing, realize it is not your size, go out of fitting room, return clothing to guard, get same style in a size up or down, repeat fitting room process, discover it doesn't fit but in a new and exciting kind of way. The process is about compromises, apparently; do you want your pants to be too tight, or too long? And heaven help you if you go to a thrift store, because you can't even go up or down in sizes, and all of the different brands mean that you have to readjust your guess of your size every time you see a new label.

3. Clothing is really expensive. I am always shocked at how little my money will buy, whether I am buying clothing, books, food, or whatever else I buy (I don't buy a lot of things). This is because, while the individual articles of clothing are cheap (wow, a tee shirt for only five dollars!), you are frequently tricked by your brain into buying more than are actually cheap, or you need a lot of them (wow, twenty tee shirts for a hundred dollars!). This is partially because your brain, in one of the million ways it is trying to screw you over royally, doesn't understand price if the number is below a certain point. It's why all those iPod/iPhone/iPad apps are $0.99: it's, for most people, below the cost where they start questioning the purchase.
But anyway. You get only a few items of clothing for what is relatively a lot of money, and so not only have you spent $50 and five hours shopping, you have only three or four items to show for it, making the whole thing feel like a waste, but with the knowledge that it's not like you could have gone without buying clothes, because you have far fewer clothes than you need. It's even worse if you paid with a gift card.

4. The organization of every single store is flawed. I could organize everywhere far better than they have chosen to organize. If you have racks that are sorted by size, you should have half of the sizes be on one side of the store, with the other half all the way across at the other side. Without any signs or directions at all. It also doesn't make sense to have hats and gloves on one side, with coats and sweaters on the other. They should be near each other, at least a little. Also, shoes next to cookware? Weird. I think this is also part of the reason I find every single store to be horribly crowded. In an inefficient store-plan, traffic gets all congested and that's why you have riots. People really ought to talk to me before planning out their stores, because I would tell them all of the ways in which their plan is horrible and I hate it. Then all stores would be substantially better.

5. Fluorescent lights are simply awful. Part of my problem with fluorescent lights is that they are simply awful, as I have just said, because they make things different colors than they actually are, hum, and generally affect one's well-being. The other part is that they make everything so bright it makes me want to kill everything until it is a reasonable brightness again. Unfortunately, I am constrained from doing this by fear and also basic human morality. My existence, then, is tortured by this aching brightness. I am also horribly unused to fluorescent lights, because all of the lights in our house are incandescent lights [except for a few, irrelevant lights]. This means that the tortured existence brought about by the brightness is something to which I am not accustomed, and I therefore cannot deal with it well. Also, they give me a headache.

6. There is 'music' playing, threatening your sanity. It is not that I hate music. I love music. I just want music to be on my own terms, like socialization. Shopping removes both of these possibilities. If you go shopping at a hip little store, you will probably hear four thousand pop songs. The worst part of these is that you will be at home a week later, sitting and minding your own business, and you will begin singing these songs to yourself. You are again tortured, and you are not even shopping any more! It is also horrible when you go shopping between Thanksgiving and Christmas, because Christmas music is playing, non-stop. There are not that many songs in the genre, either, so if you are shopping for any length of time, you will hear every single Christmas song ever written. In every possible genre. When you have heard the metal version of Carol of the Bells, you are about ready to destroy everything. I can't even imagine working retail.

I have many more things that anger me about shopping, but I figure I will spare you because it will devolve into an uninteresting rant. I can't be very funny when I rant, sometimes. Sometimes I am hilarious. About shopping, I am not.