shopping

With Mrs.B keeping her toes up in the air, it was up to me to do the shopping these last three weeks. Fair enough, I usually do the Saturday morning run to get the groceries anyway. But I hadn't counted on the fact that it's the summer sales period. Regular readers (yes, you two) of this blog know how I feel about sales period. It's what small antelopes think about the crocodile infested pond that's the only source of drinkable water in a 500 mile radius: if there were only a way to avoid it.

I needed a bunch of new clothes, like really really badly. I wear T-shirts that are made from linen because cotton hadn't been discovered yet when I bought them. My collection of single socks is probably the largest in the world. I've got strings for underwear that started their careers as boxer shorts. My sweaters were all the fashion in the 19th century. And the police have issued a warning that they'd arrest me the very next time they see me in one of my shorts.

Still, all fine and dandy. After all, I used to buy me own clothes back when I was still single. The bad part is that my sweet flamingo needed some clothes too. Among them were items such as underwear and pyjamas. And that is where the drama begins.

In Belgium we're all for the equality of sexes, but we also must admit that this supposed equality is not perfect. Women earn less on average and they find it much more difficult to have a career and climb to the ranks of upper management. However, no-one stares at them when they buy underwear for their husbands. No-one sniggers or smiles.

I, on the other hand, found myself to be the only man in the women's lingerie department. I tried hard not to notice the strange glances and the knowing smiles when I browsed through panties and knickers. And I desperately tried to cool off that red beet my head had turned into when I inquired about pyjamas. For all the feminist bullshit, shopping in a lingerie store is like looking for a particular CD while being engulfed in flames. After a couple of minutes I could take no longer, and I had to restrain myself from not running out in sheer panic.

But once I got out, I'd realised that I had still not found what I was supposed to get, and that meant that another visit to yet another lingerie shop awaited me.

We went shopping for shoes last weekend. Anyone who has an ounce of testosterone in his blood will know that men would walk trough fire, swim naked under the North pole, wrestle an anaconda or dive from a 200 metre high cliff into shark infested waters rather than enter a single shoe store. In fact, there lies the heart of the problem, because it never is just a single shoe store. It's shoe store in, shoe store out while you follow your wife while she reprimands you for the shoes you like and makes you try on shoes you don't like.

To make it even worse, it was the sales period, or 'solden' as we call it here. As if shopping for shoes wasn't horrible enough, you have to fight your way through the shopping districts and into the shops through a mass of hyperkinetic women, grumpy men and screaming children. Sales periods are when Belgians leave their houses in one giant mass to buy their clothes, I'm always surprised people buy any between the winter and the summer sales. Personally, I think running around naked is a sound alternative to trying to survive this mass frenzy. This must be why naturism is becoming increasingly popular.

But there was no escape to it. I've been walking in my summer shoes all winter long, even when it was very cold and when I had to march through a thick (at least 1,5cm) layer of snow. My old winter shoes had given up on my a year ago, when the shoe sole broke in two. It always does, because I have a tendency to walk on my toes. It's a genetic thing, my mother does it, my sister and brother do it and unfortunately my son does it too. If we want more children we'll have a hefty annual shoe bill to take into account.

But in a remarkable and happy twist, we found a pair of shoes both Mrs.B and I agreed upon, right on the last day of the sales period. We were in and out of the shop in five minutes. And then we went in again to buy a pair of slippers, because the two balls of rags I wear in the house qualify as toxic waste. So I bought four items of footwear at a time, in a single store, during the sales period, without having to wrestle through a crowd or wait for a seat to try them on or having to pull a shop assistant by the hair or anything.

And if anyone is wondering how they look: they are brown - both the shoes and the slippers - and shoe-like. Except the slippers, which are more slipper-like. I'd like to give you more details, but I'm a bloke.

Last Tuesday, when I came home, I found myself under rapid fire from Mrs.B because of some highly illegal and unnecessary items I had purchased. I must say I was a bit stunned, I hadn't expected to be interogated by the Spanish inquisition.

But then again, no-one expects the Spanish inquisition...

Upside down on a stretching rack with needles underneath my toe nails and boiling hot oil dripping on my private parts, I quickly admitted my crimes. I had indeed purchased two jars of apple sauce AND two bottles of shampoo while there were still plenty of jars of apple sauce and bottle of shampoos in stock in the cellar. So – the prosecuter screamed at high voice while she made her whip crack – I had spent no less than seven euros extra. Seven euros from our rapidly dwindling budget. Now there wouldn't be enough food for us at the end of the month. The baby would starve, or we would have to eat him to survive ourselves. Monster that I am!

I feebly tried to argue that the items that I bought would serve us well sooner or later, but the prosecuter would listen to none of my whimpering arguments. A big €-sign was burnt into my forehead, so that all can see what happens to mad spenders like me.

Three days later – in a totally unrelated event – my wife reminded me that she would go over to the neighbours' house for an 'evening with the girls'. Apart from 'the girls' there would be a saleswoman promoting make-up and other beauty products. Mrs.B assured me that she wouldn't spend a lot of money. Just for safety she'd withdrawn 40 € from our account, but of course she wouldn't spend it all. By golly, no! She hardly ever uses any make-up anyway.

And true to her word, when she returned a couple of hours later, not a single coin had left her purse. But only because she ordered for way more than 40 € worth of products. Not that she had succumbed to any peer pressure or the slick presentation of the saleswoman, you understand. She had just bought some utterly essential hard to get by very important urgently needed products for herself and for the baby. And all that for a measly 61 €.

It was not so long ago that Saint Valentine was largely unknown in Belgium. That doesn’t mean there was no love in this little country of us, oh no. But then again, what is the relation between Saint Valentine’s and love? It’s just about gaining money anyway. And that’s how it got introduced in these parts of Europe in the first place. Some twenty years ago, there were a couple of gaps between the summer holidays, the return to school, the summer sales period, Saint-Nicolas (our equivalent of Father Christmas, but his celebration is on the 6th of December), Christmas, New Year, the winter sales period and Easter. So our intrepid store keepers decided to check over the wild seas to see if they couldn’t import some extra holidays to boost sales in between the traditional shopping frenzies. And find they did. So recently we have become quite familiar with Halloween for example, when we have to BUY pumpkins and BUY masks and BUY candles and BUY worthless junk to ‘decorate’ you home.

Saint Valentine got tied to the mast and sailed over the English channel a couple of years earlier. It’s an absolute shame how we get these holidays in our faces and stuffed down our troths just to serve the commercial interests of the greedy little capitalists that would sell their soul for a bit of cash. I mean, do we really need a special day to say ‘I love you’ with ridiculously expensive gifts that no-one asked for and that end up in the back of some closet a month later? Why do we dress up in ‘sexy’ lingerie that evening that we wouldn’t been seen dead in for the rest of the year and pretend to have the best fuck session ever like a couple over-used third rate porn stars? How meaningless is it if you empty your wallet once a year but don’t spend a moment’s attention to each other the other 364 days. Isn’t it more valuable to show your affection every day with little attentions and sweet words?

Anyway, I bought her a lovely candle shaped like a couple of cute little bears dancing with each other, dressed in a tuxedo and a beautiful dress. And tonight we’re going to have dinner at her (and my) favourite place in Antwerp, a Greek restaurant close to the Main Market square. And after that I’ll put on my ‘elephant’ underwear…

‘Didn’t you get any bread?’

‘We’re out of bread?’

‘Yes we are. What did I tell you yesterday evening in bed?’

‘Err. Ehm. Sleep well?’

<Very stern look>

‘I told you we were out of bread and that you should get some for lunch!’

I thought that ‘sleep well’ was a pretty good guess.

Last Tuesday, the annual winter sales period, or ‘solden’ (Flemish)/Soldes (French) as they are called, started again. That’s a mighty big deal here; journalists all over the country give almost live coverage of the whole event. Every year, the big question is which stores didn’t respect the official and legally permitted period of time to sell their goods at a much reduced price.