Positively Tuesday: POSITIVELY WINDOW SHOPPING

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

POSITIVELY WINDOW SHOPPING

by Mauverneen

window shopping in the rain

Window shopping. An engaging, indulgent pastime intended to while away the hours daydreaming, while building up our defensive skills learning to say no to temptation. It’s an inexpensive diversion that is akin to buying a lottery ticket – for a few hours you can be as rich as a Bill Gates or a Donald Trump. You can eyeball the same $38,000 handbag as Oprah - if you happen to be in the same neighborhood.

I'd rather have sweets

I do a lot of window shopping when I’m a tourist and a lot more when I’m Christmas shopping. It’s more fun when I’m a tourist. At Christmas it’s either too expensive, they’ve already got one, or I know they’ll never use it.

And sometimes – sometimes you fall madly in love with whatever is on the other side of that window and you just have to have it.

Frit painting, Tubac Art Gallery

Not that that’s ever happened to me of course. Just saying.

Now THAT's a STEIN mart!

In the old movies the smitten lover would see the perfect gift, dash inside and have the store clerk pluck the desired item right out of the display. It would be gift wrapped and opportunely presented to the overwhelmed recipient, resulting in the perfect happy ending. Nowadays? Good luck finding a store clerk first of all. It would probably go downhill from there.

'Main Street' display, Joliet Historical Museum

The Modern version of window shopping is browsing on the net. We can find anything our heart desires with a few clicks. The right movie, a new pair of shoes, a great deal, or the perfect beach. Makes me wonder why we need so many shoes – we sure aren’t wearing them out.

Michigan Avenue mannequins

With Christmas only a couple of months away I’ll probably start out the old-fashioned way – trekking from store to store - but as the weather gets colder and colder, I’ll probably finish it up the modern way – on my butt – and ‘let my fingers do the walking’.