When life gets ROUGH and you get the BLUES, you've had ENOUGH now buy some new SHOES! That’s my mantra when I need to get out of any mess that surrounds my life on a regular basis.

SHOPPING...What could be better than retail therapy? You’ll anyway pay more for the therapy a shrink would provide. Sometimes, I feel I shop for things I don't need, in an obvious effort to fill the void in my life. What else can I do? Through shopping, somehow I find a new focus and my mood gets uplifted.

What I can't solve in real life, I solve through retail therapy. 

It is often said that home isn’t a place, it’s a feeling. I feel more at home when I enter a shopping mall. It feels like paradise. So many things out there waiting to be picked up and who could provide them with a better home than a shopaholic like myself. I never believed in ‘love at first sight’ until I discovered my love for shopping. When I see a beautiful dress or a lovely pair of shoes or something as tiny as a hair clip, I just know it then that I HAVE to buy it. It’s like you’ve met your soulmate and you know this is the one. The only difference is that with shopping you can have as many soulmates as you like. That’s the fun of it.

And as Sophie Kinsella says in her novel, “Confessions of a Shopaholic”, a man will never treat you as well as a store. So you might as well fall in love with stores, at least there won’t be any heartaches and tears.

Despite all the good the world seems to offer, true happiness can only be found in one thing - shopping. Shopping is the great true love of my life. I am loyal and constant in my love for shopping, as I have not always been loyal and constant in my other loves. I feel about shopping the way a happy new mother feels about her impossible, colicky, restless newborn baby- I just don’t care what it puts me through. Because I adore it. Because it’s mine. It can barf all over me if it wants to- I just don’t care.

I’m not a morning person but tell me there’s a sale on at seven in the morning and I will definitely be up and ready. Just the mere thought of shopping can cheer me up. Call me materialistic if you please, but the only thing that brings me solace is shopping. Any day is a good day when there is shopping involved.

When I shop, the world suddenly transforms into such a beautiful place where there is nothing but joy and contentment. All of a sudden I’m even ready to forgive my worst enemies! After a while, that feeling starts to wear away and then I need to do it again. That way, the world always remains beautiful. A nice way to bring about some world peace!

A man will never understand the relationship between a woman and her shoes, just like a woman will never understand the relationship between a man and sports. But actually the two are interlinked.

Shopping is a woman’s thing. It’s a contact sport like football. Women enjoy the scrimmage, the noisy crowds, the danger of being trampled to death, and the ecstasy of the purchase. Another thing linked very strongly to shopping is destiny. Believe it or not but it’s true, speaking out of personal experience. Okay let me elaborate. For example, you like a beautiful watch at a store (ON SALE!!!) and due to some reason your card doesn’t work and you realize you ain’t carrying sufficient cash to pay for it and you are all heartbroken because you want it in that moment but you can’t buy it. You ask the sales girl if she can hold onto it until the next morning, you even promise her you’ll be there as soon as the store opens, but she doesn’t agree because that’s against the rules. She says she’s not allowed to do something of the kind.

You are pretty disheartened but you just decide that it’s going to be there for you the next morning if it is meant to be yours. The next morning you wake up and impatiently wait for the time to tick by and rush to the store but you end up reaching there a little late due to heavy traffic or because you were caught up with some family stuff at home.

You enter the store with your fingers crossed and a hopeful heart and there it is, that pretty little thing shining in all its glory, just waiting for you to slip it around your wrist.

The salesgirl then informs you that a man wanted to purchase this very watch just when the store had opened up but he could not because something was wrong with the battery and the service centre guy hadn’t turned up yet, the man said he’d come back for it later but since I’d arrived before him, they had to sell it to me.

When I walked in, the service centre guy just walked in too. Is this making sense now? How destiny plays such a vital role in shopping. The watch was always meant to be mine! I felt a tad bit sorry for the man’s girlfriend/wife/sister/mother/mistress or whomsoever he wanted it for but that was just for a moment. I was exhilarated. Each time I put on that watch, I can’t help thinking about how it was always destined to be mine. 

Shopping is nothing short of religion for me and oh yes I’m a pious devotee. But I really wish I was as religious about my workout regime as well as my sleeping and eating habits! Well I can go on and on about my love for shopping but the thing is I haven’t bought anything since yesterday and if I need to maintain my sanity, I need to go out this very minute and spend some money.

My wardrobe sure does expect at least one new member on a regular basis. Or maybe I could pick up a few magazines if not clothes or shoes. Or maybe a good book. Or maybe that French manicure kit I was planning on buying. I need some lip gloss too. What about some diet chocolate? Oh how I wish there were Pulitzer prizes for writing out brilliant shopping lists!

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