It’s not shopping I hate; it’s shopping carts. I figured that out yesterday in Kmart and applied it today in Target. It’s actually quite a relief to have figured this out so early in the shopping season (although I doubt I’ll be frequenting the stores and malls all that much, because I really do hate shopping). (As well as its carts.)

It was a sign of hopeful optimism that I even took a cart and pushed it through Kmart. I rarely find what I’m looking for there, and the layout isn’t very intuitive, so I end up wandering up and down the same aisles over and over. That’s exactly what happened, in fact. I wouldn’t have gone in there in the first place, but I got a tip. I won’t say what I was after, because the intended recipient might get wind of it, but I had it on some authority that I could find it at Kmart. That turned out to be sadly illusory.

The worst part of the trek through the ’mart was trying to get close enough to the items so that I could know what I was looking at. Everybody else had a cart, and they didn’t seem to be having any trouble. They were just in my way, so that I had to make a lot of U-turns. I wandered and poked around and had no luck, so I took the cart back to the front of the store and went back to look again without it. I still didn’t find anything, but it was a much more pleasant experience.

So I came home and ordered the items on line. The cost of shipping turned out to be a lot less than the value of the time I wasted.

Today in Target I didn’t take a cart. I knew exactly what I wanted, and I was determined to buy no more than I could carry in my two hands. That worked out ever so much better, and I came home from that store with a much better attitude. Plus, I didn’t have to drive nearly as far, so the traffic didn’t get to me as much. And, I know my way around that store better, so it wasn’t as frustrating. Mostly, though, I’m glad I wasn’t pushing a cart. All those other shoppers still got in my way, but it was way easier to squeeze by them.