Saturday, 1 December 2007

Brilliant Shopping

It was great to see in Stephen Fry's documentary, The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive, that he too suffers from bouts of Brilliant Shopping.

Brilliant Shopping is perhaps not constrained to people who have bipolar disorder, but seems to come out more regularly in those who do. From a post over at Ladies Who Love Dinosaurs...

This is what I went into M&S for:
Single cream
Onion

This is what I came out with:
2 packets roast beef and horseradish Christmas special crisps
Pomegranate seeds (removed from pith)
Christmas pudding flavoured yoghurt
2 Pink Lady apples (which I wanted because they are pink on the inside)
3 bean salad
Tandoori naan bread
Instant microwave porridge
Single cream
4 organic onions

Sara from My Sad Alter Ego relates...

I got it into my head that I wanted a kite after seeing one in a toy store…and then I kept buying kites that I kept finding, one after another (same day), each one more spectacular than the last. I love those kites.


Brilliant Shopping is that urge that grabs you in a shop - you need to buy these things NOW. You need that DVD boxset. It's £20.00 cheaper online, but you don't care. It's simply not the same if you have to order and wait for it. The actual act of buying it is part of the pleasure.

The "impulse buys" that shops put by the counters for you to peruse while you wait to be served are to tempt the normal shopper.

For us, the entire store is the impulse buy section.

I bought a radio controlled helicopter. I gave the charger for it away to someone who had the same model, but a broken charger. Now I have a helicopter which I can't charge up to use, and will forever sit on my desk at work.

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