| I do not believe, as do some friends, in being critical of one's spouse "" but even so am a little dismayed at my wife's recent propensity to shop. |
| "It may give you a momentary high," I pointed out to her, "but is not a long-term solution to your, er, unhappiness." Typical of her gender, she was not amused at my amateur attempt at psychoanalysis. "Have I taken money from you?" she asked. "No, of course not," I said. "So sod it," she said crisply, which is just what I did. |
| But I couldn't help worrying all through last week, which is when she was in Bangkok on what she had assured me was a working trip. But whenever I called, she appeared to be out shopping. She went to malls and to night bazaars, she shopped by the streetside and in stores and even in wholesale markets. |
| "I'm not buying much," she assured me, "you get everything back home in any case." "So why are you out in the market?" I asked her. "What else is there to do in Bangkok but shop and eat," she responded. |
| It was difficult to load her weighed cases into the car at the airport when she got back, and even tougher lugging them across to the second floor. And when she got around to opening the bags, the debris lay strewn across the sofas and the floor like an explosion in a department store. There were kafir lime leaves to keep a restaurant supplied for a month, bags of tissue rolls, piles of trays, clothes and more clothes, kilos of green and red paste to cook Thai curries in, dozens of flip-flops, packets of passion fruit and some strange looking vegetables, all of them thrown higgledy-piggledy together. |
| I must have looked faint, for my wife said, "It only looks like a lot, but is just a few gifts for a few close friends and family." "It looks like a lot more than that," I must have said, for she replied acidly, "Well, I had to get something for your mother, didn't I?" I nodded mutely, so she continued: "So I got her a shirt, and then had to get myself three." And a half-dozen more, just in case. |
| It seems she couldn't help herself. If she thought my sister might like a purse, she bought a full dozen instead. A hand creme for a neighbour meant similar tubes for ten others. And she could hardly buy a skirt for our daughter without getting at least as many as the number of friends our daughter has. Out came piles of inners and T-shirts, socks and fake watches, pottery (all of it miraculously intact) and nail polish, body washes and things so strange, one could hardly describe them. |
| Glancing at it, my wife said, "I can't stand to look at all this rubbish any more, so will you please put it away?" Which was easier said then done "" there was no more storage space in the house. "Maybe," mused my wife, "I've overdone it a bit, but at least we'll have gifts to give our friends over all of this year without having to go out shopping." |
| "Perhaps you're right," I sighed, "though it might become tiring to give away ladies bags to all your women friends, and T-shirts to their husbands, and Sarla might not want a gift from you if she finds out that Padma and Anita have also got the same thing." "Then," said my wife with new-found assertiveness, "they can sod it, and now, if you'll excuse me, I must go out shopping." "Shopping!" I exclaimed, "whatever for?" "Since I'm going to give all this away," she said to me, "I must go out and buy something for myself. |
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