The Shopper and the Shauppeur

These days, many of my "blogger-thoughts" seem to occur while shopping. I hope I can say this without sounding shallow or inane. Anyway, today, I accompanied the husband to a store to help him pick out a pair of jeans. Finding myself in the unusual role of the shauppeur (okay, it's not a real word, but, you know, shauppeur = shop + chauffeur = someone who drives/accompanies you to shopping), it struck me, for the first time, that stores in the US almost never have any seating. It's almost as if they don't want the many waiting spouses/friends/parents accompanying their customers to have this basic comfort.

This lead to a sudden (and emotional) flashback to stores in India where customer service is impeccable. Right from the 'aiye behenji' greeting, to seating customers comfortably as someone tirelessly unfolds and displays hundreds of sarees while the behenji-suddenly-turned-diva rejects them one after the other with a shake of her head. The behenji is then shown how the saree will look on her, the saleswoman, and the store manager so that she can get a truly accurate picture of what the saree looks like, and is convinced that there really is no catch. And this I will never understand - how is it humanly possible to smile at someone who walks away after all this without buying anything? Epitome of human endurance if you ask me.

Anyway, back to America where, except for a 30-day return policy (which I will forever be grateful for), customers aren't treated as gods. Now, the behenji-business ain't gonna fly in America, but I would imagine that at least seating shauppeurs will allow them to busy themselves with Facebook apps on their iPhones and whine less, so that the shoppers can take their time to browse the store and find something they like. This may particularly help the case of the tired/irritable/impatient/well-past-the-dating-stage-I-don't-have-to-impress-no-more shauppeurs.

But then again, having no seating may force shauppeurs to browse the store themselves and perhaps buy something (I did eye a this pair of pink jeans that I almost tried today). Two birds with one stone maybe? This may hold true mostly for female shauppeurs though. What do you guys think?

Anyway, this post isn't just an attempt to understand the complex science of shoppology, but of late, I've noticed how little time and money is spent in understanding what people want, and how much of it is spent on something that someone sitting within the confines of an office thinks is a great idea. Just trying to see if paying attention to little things can make a difference. To the perceptive eye, some of my posts have undercurrents ...

Shopping, these days...

Over the years, I've found that my patience with shopping has significantly waned. If I see a longish line outside a fitting room or cash register (a rather common sight in New York), I more often than not overcome my desire to own new clothes and escape almost instantly.

So today I went shopping again. I know, I know, I bought a lot lately but the weather's turning rather grey in New York which means that fall is here and somehow, yet again, I have nothing to wear! (Digressing a bit here, but how is it that one can own so many clothes and still have nothing to wear? It's a baffling phenomenon that seems to afflict only women...)Anyway, as I stood in a line outside the fitting room contemplating whether I should try a sweater on to confirm if the extra small size in GAP is really a medium or not (Have you seen what GAP calls small ?!!), I saw a visibly exhausted mother sit down to rest her tired feet after spending probably several hours shopping with her teenage daughter for back-to-school clothes. While the daughter enthusiastically tried on clothes and showed no signs of relenting, her tired, but patient mother looked on. And suddenly I was reminded of all the times when I went shopping with my mother. I would insist we survey every store in town before going back to the first store to buy the first outfit I had tried, while my mother shook her head in disbelief and indulged a daughter who never seemed to tire of shopping. It was so much fun. Mothers and daughters just have this thing, you know? I miss you mummy! :(

Off to New Orleans!

So we're going away this weekend to New Orleans! We decided around two weeks ago to make the trip and ever since then, two things have become apparent to me: (a) The anticipation of an impending vacation is one of the best payoffs of taking a vacation, (b) A woman's approach to a vacation is vastly different from that of a man.

I think (a) is self-explanatory, but let me dwell on (b) for a bit. If you're a man, your approach most likely will be - "Tickets are booked. Great. We leave at 7 for the airport". But, if you're a woman, it all begins with the quintessential pre-vacation question - "What am I going to wear?". And one thing will lead to another and before you know it, your "incidental expenses" will outweigh expenses of your trip itself. So, a new top, a new skirt, new clothes for the husband, a bag of goodies from Sephora, a new perfume, and a hair styling appointment later, we're all set to leave this evening. Will blog about New Orleans once we're back!

PS: This is for my fellow makeup junkies. My haul from Sephora consisted of a smudge-proof eye pencil from Urban Decay, liquid eye liner from Tattoo, Eye shadow in Galapagos from Nars, and a soft-pencil lip color in Walkyrie from Nars as well. Haven't tried all of them yet, so right now, I can only vouch for the lip color which I also used at my wedding two years ago. So hard to find a good shade for lip color for brown women around here somehow. If anyone knows of any, please help out :).