There's just something about most big-box retail establishments that doesn't agree with me. Actually as I grow older I find I'm increasingly averse to any retail establishments. Perhaps it's a holdover from earlier years when money was so scarce and I always felt uncomfortable in retail shops, when the price tags on items that I found personally attractive were always beyond my reach. That led to a bit of an aversion to being in those places.

Now that I am able to afford just about anything I might want to acquire, I am restrained by another feeling, and that is that there's nothing I really need, and not an awful lot I really want. As well, that old price-sticker reaction is still alive and well. I find most items for sale grossly over-priced in value; which is to say their intrinsic value is not necessarily reflected in their overblown price.

Perhaps that's why I eventually found myself migrating to second-hand shops, in particular not just any second-hand shop, but those operated by the Salvation Army. Although most of the items available there have been as is said in polite circles 'pre-owned' many are in excellent shape and present as quite attractive owner-options. I don't really think of it as acquiring someone else's discards. On the other hand, we've become such a throw-away society of impulse shoppers that people have a tendency to buy things then forget about them until they actively proceed to cleaning out their closets.

I am amazed at the quality of some of the goods for sale at such shops. And gratified that many of them appear in mint condition. It isn't difficult to persuade myself that such objects and apparel represent good buys.

View of the Indoor Fountain at Place D’Orleans Shopping Centre.
Photo by orleansonline.ca, 2007

 

Yesterday I was prevailed upon by circumstances to accompany my husband to a nearby very large indoor shopping mall. It's a retail establishment-condominium I hadn't stepped foot in for the past fifteen years, at least. It's modern and attractive and festively decorated for the Christmas season, though actual postings of Christmas appear absent in favour of Holiday and Season, a bit of an absurdity.

In the mall, sitting on the gleaming marble floors there are sparkly, bright-red artificial evergreens festooned with lovely blinking lights. There are green wreaths with tinkly ornaments brightening the atmosphere. And there are hordes of anxious shoppers looking for that perfect gift for someone in their lives. For 'tis the season of gifting.



I felt overstimulated and intimidated in the place. Its size and aggressive marketing offended my sense of priorities and values. The oppressively loud sound, absent of traditional Christmas music, but full of intrusive popular music did nothing to relax my sense of alienation. Walking over the spacious floor plans with its several levels (thankfully we remained on one level and traversed but a relatively small portion of even that) seemed physically onerous to me. For some peculiar reason my feet felt like lead, and I found it difficult to walk normally, as though I had been burdened by a peculiar and inexplicable weight I found difficult to carry around with me or shrug off.



I felt anxious to get our reason for being there to begin with over with, to escape the large, colourful confines of the place. Having conducted our business we made haste to remove ourselves, and a great sense of relief overtook me; escape from materialism and unbeatable commerce? I don't quite think so, there's something else that defines the experience, I just can't identify it.