I Could Think of Worse Ways Than Shopping to Spend My Day...

... but they would involve death. As it is, going shopping is right up there.

I hate shopping, because it makes me irritable. Especially when I don't find what I want. And it seems like retailers are in cahoots to make sure that I don't. I can imagine them all huddling in a dark alley near the Glendale Galleria on a cold, cloudy morning such as this one. "Hey," they'll whisper to each other. "I've heard news... the frogg is on the move, and she's looking for a simple, white, button-down dress shirt. We all know what to do!" Then I will arrive at the mall and every single store I go into will have dress shirts of every size, color, and style... EXCEPT white and button-down.

Trust me, it's happened before.

Still, the time comes when, like it or not, I have to do some shopping. And today might be one of those days. Which is why I am still lying in bed. I'm hoping I come to my senses before it's too late.

The trouble is, I actually do need some things. Like shoes. I've been wearing flip-flops or sneakers to work but there are times when, in fact, something more dressy is called for. And then what do I do??

The worse trouble is, I hate shoe-shopping more than any other kind of shopping. It's a nightmare, because being tall, I have big feet. Which means I can't ever find cute shoes in my size.

As if to make matters even more complicated on the shopping front, I read this article this morning, all about how women's sizes are shrinking to accommodate the vanity of women who are, shall we say, not shrinking accordingly. So in other words, someone who is normally a size 10 can now fit into (for example) a size 6 even though they haven't lost any weight. Because for some reason, women think their beauty is dependent on the number displayed on a tag on their jeans.

Dave Barry wrote about this strange female tendency, and here's part of what he had to say:

When a man shops for clothes, his primary objective -- follow me closely here -- is to purchase clothes that fit on his particular body. A man will try on a pair of pants, and if those pants are too small, he'll try on a larger pair, and when he finds a pair that fits, he buys them. Most men do not spend a lot of time fretting about the size of their pants. Many men wear jeans with the size printed right on the back label, so that if you're standing behind a man in a supermarket line, you can read his waist and inseam size. A man could have, say, a 52-inch waist and a 30-inch inseam, and his label will proudly display this information, which is basically the same thing as having a sign that says: ``Howdy! My butt is the size of a Federal Express truck!''

The situation is very different with women. When a woman shops for clothes, her primary objective is not to find clothes that fit her particular body.

She would like for that to be the case, but her primary objective is to purchase clothes that are the size she wore when she was 19 years old. This will be some arbitrary number such as ''8'' or ''10.'' Don't ask me ''8'' or ''10'' of what: That question has baffled scientists for centuries. All I know is that if a woman was a size 8 at age 19, she wants to be a size 8 now, and if a size 8 outfit does not fit her, she will not move on to a larger size: She can't! Her size is 8, dammit! So she will keep trying on size 8 items, and unless they start fitting her, she will become extremely unhappy. She may take this unhappiness out on her husband, who is waiting patiently in the mall, perhaps browsing in the Sharper Image store, trying to think of how he could justify purchasing a pair of night-vision binoculars.

''Hi!'' he'll say, when his wife finds him. ``You know how sometimes the electricity goes out at night and ...''

''Am I fat?'' she'll ask, cutting him off.

This is a very bad situation for the man, because if he answers ''yes,'' she'll be angry because he's saying that she's fat, and if he answers ''no,'' she'll be angry because he's obviously lying, because none of the size 8s fit her. There is no escape for the husband. I think a lot of unexplained disappearances occur because guys in malls see their wives unsuccessfully trying on outfits, and they realize their lives will be easier if, before their wives come out and demand to know whether they're fat, the guys just run off and join a UFO cult.


See, reason #253 why the frogg is still single is that men haven't figured out that she hates shopping, and that she never asks, "Am I fat?" So they aren't aware of what a consequently good catch that makes her--alarming evidence of their short-sightedness and, in some cases, stupidity.

Which, taken together, would be reason #1.