The Superficial

When it comes to shopping, I am a browser. A window shopper. I like the experience of looking at pretty things. I don't have to buy them to have fun shopping. There is a store near me that I especially enjoy. The merchandise is unusual and ever changing. The sales people are available yet unobtrusive. The store smells good, like fresh air and flowers, the lighting is soft and the temperature is always nice and cool, even on a hot day. It just makes me happy to go into that shop and look around.

I work in retail myself, in a store in a very affluent area. We are told to ask each customer as they arrive at our cash register, "Did you find everything you were looking for today?" Many times they reply something like, "Well, I didn't need anything, but look at all I'm buying." Some are almost apologetic at buying all that stuff. I figure their consumption fuels our economy and gives me a job and if they aren't taking food out of their kids' mouths to buy that stuff, what's the harm?

Maybe what they are feeling is the superficiality of it. Now I like beautiful things in my home and flowers on the table and lovely clothes and sparkly jewelry just as much as the next girl, but all that stuff is just the window dressing of what is hopefully already a meaningful life. We could have all the things that money could buy. But if the stuff is all we have, then I would have to agree with the words to this song: that life's a bore.

Susan

"Ain't Got You" written by Alicia Keyes