looking for a cliff.....

We moved Meg out of her apartment Saturday morning. First semester is over, and she's glad of it.

The bride said that after we had some lunch, she wanted to stop by the mall in Murfreesboro to pick something up. No problem, I thought. We'll go there and we'll come back home. Oh, how stupid I was to believe that.

I've always considered myself unusual for a member of the male species in that I like shopping. I've learned over time, however, that my definition of shopping is different from a female's definition. I like to shop this way: go to the store, find what I'm looking for, maybe look somewhere else to make sure I'm getting the best price, buy the item, come back home. Simple. But the bride and other females shop this way: go to the store/mall/shopping center, think about buying something, debate on it some more, consider how cute this would look with that, drive to another store/mall/shopping center, ponder on several other items, drive to another store/mall/shopping center, come back home and browse the Internet for more things, then think about ordering online.

We went to Stones River Mall and did some shopping. Well, they did shopping while I sat in a chair near men old enough to be my great-grandfather. They finished there and declared that we needed to go to Target. It's just across the street. But it took 15 minutes to get there. After Target and a couple of other stores, we went to The Avenues. I will jump off a cliff before I go to The Avenues again on a Saturday during the Christmas shopping season. I promise. What could be so compelling that you would want to inch your way through the parking lot, find a space, only to spend your time in stores that have such narrow aisles that you can't walk without getting stabbed by a clothes rack?

We had to go back to the mall to pick up the bride's van since we'd all been in Meg's car. Once we got back in the van, we started to head home. It took almost 40 minutes to get to the interstate, which was only about 2 miles away. I breathed a sigh of immense relief when we got on I-24.

I spent the evening swearing I'd never shop anywhere but on the Internet from now on.....