Suit Shopping Is NOT fun!

I love to shop. Sometimes when I am having a rough day, I can get in the car and just go to Smith's Market Place and walk around. I don't even have to buy anything, maybe a Diet Coke (HELLO!), to feel satisfied with my shopping experience. On a daily basis I usually go to J. Crew or Children's Place and fill my cart with things that I will never buy. My friend Julie was just saying yesterday that I go to the store like everyday, but the big secret is that I might go to the store, but I don't always shop at the store. I like to look around, walk around, smell the flowers, the perfume, touch the clothes, dab at the cosmetics.... just the thrill of shopping.... my emotional fix. I thought I could spend time in any store and be happy, until today when I went with Tyler to the Men's Wearhouse.

What a horrible place this Men's Wearhouse. It is a suit store and it just isn't fun. They have giant sale signs, which I normally love to read and appreciate, but the sales are not all that amazing and the labels read between $299 and $499... SERIOUSLY?? Then when they pull out these suits, they all look the same... pin striped, blue, grey.... It is just not fun. Where are the hot blondes that usually model these suits?! I can tell you, not at the Men's Wearhouse.

Plus, where is he going to wear this suit?? Suits are for BORING and NO FUN events... funerals, court dates, church. Not really a sexy and excited way to spend the day shopping. So we went to this suit store and I felt no rush, no thrill, no emotional connection... and I left feeling a void, an emptiness that I have never encountered when shopping... even though I spent well over $500, which should normally wet my appetite. I never got the "transported" feeling that I get when I walk into a Target, Nordstroms or Macy's.

I hate to admit this, but if all men have to experience this suit shopping experience at a young age it might explain the Men hate Shopping phenomenon that is so relevant in our culture. We all have experience shopping with our better half... We laugh at the Women are from Nordstroms, Men are from Sears. We glide up the escalators, humming the familiar tunes played on the grand paino... but what if we only were able to experience the Suit Store?!

I hate to admit this, but it all makes sense, this shopping on a mission philosophy. I walked in and just wanted to grab something and walk out. They had no sounds of laughing women, no perfume counters, no music. I started to think like a man and was excited about the close parking space, that all the color of suits were in stock and that the length of the checkout line was minimal to none. Gone were my days of investing in my shopping experience. I had no emotional attachment to the idea of buying a $250 product, with the second item being only $100. My thoughts kept going back to the idea that these suits would be worn only because society has deemed it social acceptable for him to buy expensive suits and only wear them a couple times a month. All I wanted to do is buy it and leave so I could do something else, anything else. This was no Manolo Blahnik Sex in the City experience.

All in all, today was a shopping bust... a disaster of the highest magnitude... something less satisfying than chicken noodle soup on a cold winter day. Please bless that I don't have to repeat this. I have to go, Costco is calling my name.