Shopping is My Meditation

I love shopping at strange hours, especially either early in the morning or late at night. Usually when I go that late, I am grocery shopping, but occasionally, I will hit a department store for a mega sale like I did for Black Friday and yesterday for the Day After Christmas.

There is something very relaxing about going shopping late at night when there aren't as many people. I will start on one end of the store looking through home and beauty, the seasonal aisles (yay for after Christmas markdowns!), work through electronics, home and bath, pets, and then on to grocery. I take my time to go up and down each aisle looking to see what's new and what's on sale. Rarely, I go with an agenda, and I like it that way. It makes finding good sales more of a thrill.

Grocery shopping at night has it's benefits.  There's rarely a bunch of crazy families yelling at each other, screaming, crying kids being left in aisles by parents annoyed with their behavior, and it's much less crowded. While there still are some people out and about, the crowds are much smaller.  Most often, it's a few families, some younger couples out to get last minute items for the week, some single people like me, and the store workers who are restocking shelves and cleaning the floors.

I don't know why but being in the store at this time of night makes me relaxed. I can take my time walking around; I don't feel rushed by the people and carts zooming by me like they do during daytime shopping hours. Listening to the floor buffer compete with the store music as I walk up and down aisles is strangely comforting. I find myself relaxed as I walk through the store, almost in a semi-meditative state. Why is that?

For as long as I can remember, I've always enjoyed going shopping by myself, although there were a few times I would take someone else along. The experience wasn't quite the same, though. Shopping was "my time." I could spend almost two hours at the store, taking my time to walk down every aisle and check every sale, carefully selecting items for the house and picking out the best fruit and vegetables to eat from the organic bins (when possible).

Sometimes, I just go shopping to walk around and meditate, even if I don't end up buying anything (although it is rare that I will go shopping and not think of something I need to get). Even though I don't have a husband or children to "get away" from for a while, I still feel like this is something that offers me a little bit of peace and quiet in my normally crazy life. 

The funny part is that even though I tend to shop during odd hours, I still run into interesting people and see some pretty funny stuff (and it's not always at Wal-Mart haha!):

1. I was walking down the shampoo aisle, and a couple of Hispanic men were talking in Spanish about shampoo they were looking at. They saw me, and one of them said to his friend, "Wow, look at her." The friend said, "She has great breasts."  Of course, they didn't know I spoke Spanish.  I turned and looked at them and said "Gracias". The looks on their faces were priceless!  They immediately hurried their cart over into the next aisle. 
2. Walking down the baking/spice aisle, I saw a young black woman with her toddler who was cute as a button! He was giggling and playing in the cart while she was looking at some spices. Our carts were really close to together, and as I went to pass them, he reached out his arm and grabbed mine. He said "Hi!" and started waving at me with his other hand.  His little curls were just bouncing on his head and he wiggled in his seat trying to get closer to me for me to pick up him. I started to laugh and told him he needed to stay where he was.  His mom turned around and said she was sorry he was so friendly. I sure didn't mind!
3. Last night I was at Meijer and was walking in the grocery section. Toward the back end of the store, they were polishing the floors.  The guy who was running the polishing was machine was an older black man, maybe in his 40s or early 50s.  He had on some type of Ipod or MP3 player and was definitely grooving to the beat while polishing. He was breaking it down and singing to his music while he was trying to push that big machine around. I don't know if he was truly following a pattern with the polishing, but he was most definitely having fun. This is one that should go on my list of things that make me smile. :)  

Am I the only one that does this? Any good shopping stories to share? Share below!