10 Ways to Be A Bad Shopper This Holiday Season
With American Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday in the rear view mirror on this wild ride of living life beautifully it’s time to focus on the most festive - and at times most stressful - time of the year. The holidays!
But before we delight at the gifts under the trees, bellies full of turkey and booze, we have to get ready for all the fun. Instead of me telling you to make a list and check it twice wouldn’t it be more fun to be bad? Let’s swap naughty for nice, shall we? Here are my tips for making shopping a badass time.
1. Go to the mall hungry - If you want to test your patience I challenge you to go to the mall on an empty stomach. Nothing like thousands of people, parking lot minesweeper, and lines everywhere to test just how much you can withstand. Don’t punk out on me early and stop by the food court. Mind voodoo your belly. Outwill. Outlast. Overcome!
2. Rush your way through it - Who wants to take a reasonable amount of time to carefully select trinkets for loved ones. Not this year. Put on your running shoes and jack up the volume in your headphones – thinking Darude’s Sandstorm on loop - and hammer away like there’s no tomorrow and the finish line is within sight.
3. Wait until the last minute - There’s nothing like a sense of urgency to get the reindeer-a-running and Santa-a-shopping. In this overly productive crazed world why not flip it the bird and start shopping the last possible day. If you’re online shopping may I suggest you so tactfully print out pictures of the gifts that will come in January?
4. Don’t get a gift receipt - Confidence is key, right? Take that same principal and apply it to gifting this year. Just shove random stuff in a cart, pay, and get out of there. If you don’t care about gift receipts you likely don’t care about the person actually liking the gift. It’s a lose-lose win-win. Just think of all the free space you’ve created to care about something else!
5. Get suckered into gift boxes just because - Retailers do all the work when they put those gift boxes of similar things together. They throw in things you didn’t ask for or want but, hey, why not? Why waste time worrying about all the junk they won’t use and just buy it all. It’s already in a box so you’re pretty much done.
6. Take a break - Shopping is hard. So hard. Some may stop and relax at a bench or grab a quick snack. But not you; you’re giving this 100%. Treat all your hard work and bugger off to a movie for a few hours. You’ve earned it.
7. Take an unwilling child, friend, or spouse - Sometimes you need a helper. There’s that old adage 'misery loves company’ so be sure to drag along the most negative Ned or Nancy you know. That way every store you go into with be bombarded with their unnecessary complaining and general grumpiness. Their shit attitude will instantly make yours seem angelic in comparison.
8. Lug all the bags with you all at once - Now that you’ve mastered not eating, why not take it to the next level. It’s time for a physical challenge. Instead of taking back your bags to the car when they get heavy, keep ‘em all and lug them with you the whole way. You’ll not only be maxing out your credit cards this holiday, you’ll be maxing out arm reps. Feel the burn.
9. Shop for yourself - ‘Tis the season to receive. No wait, it’s give right? Who can keep track? I say you buy one for little Johnny, one for me. Next up it’s one for Mom, one for me. Pretty soon you’ll have more stuff you won’t even want to open up your gifts come the 25th. The more the merrier, right?
10. Free yourself of budgets - Being pragmatic and responsible got us nowhere in 2016. With that in mind just blow your budget and buy champagne gifts instead of sticking to your beer budget. Buy for your neighbour you don’t like, and his neighbour that you barely know, and their neighbour! 2017 is like a year away so you have plenty of time to pay it off.
It’s fun to be bad, right? If this is sounding more like the actual you than the dripping sarcasm I intend it to be, call me. I got you.
