Shopping paralysis Trudi style

I generally am a decisive person. But there are certain times that I am afflicted by what I call shopping paralysis. Perhaps shopping induced comatose state would be a more descriptive term. This rose whatever the name is not sweet but very annoying.

I am trying to buy my daughter a winter coat and mittens for her birthday. The selection for coats is relatively small for her size so that choice is made fairly quickly but then I turn to the hat and mitten rack. OH MY GOSH!! There are literally 30 or 40 different kinds of hat and mitten sets to choose from. More than half an
hour later, I have finally drag myself away from the rack and stumble off to buy the set I selected for my daughter.

It is not that the store did not have a set I liked. Noooo. I was paralyzed by cuteness. (I have learned this is more common when shopping for girls things than boys things.) There were so many darling hat and mitten sets, I just couldn't pick only ONE, for crying out loud. There were pink velour sets with sparkles all over, fleece hats with sweet little stripes and little balls of fabric on the crown of the head, knit hats with scandavanian snowflake patterns trimmed in faux fur at the bottom, hats with little princesses on them, and others with snowflakes stiched with silver thread. There were pink and white and blue and purple sets - and this just for the girls section. There were sets with famous characters on them - dora, blue, disney characters. Then there were the plain jane cheap sets with just one color at the low low price of just 3.99 a set. The faux fur sets were nearly $15. This is human creativity and consumerism run amok.

Now did I have 30+ minutes to stare paralyzed with indecision at the hat and mitten rack at the local department store? No. Did my daughter even actually need a hat and mitten set? No, actually she had mittens already (but they didn't match her new coat) and the coat I bought came with a hood. But what did I do? I spent my scarce time and resources getting something entirely because it was too cute to pass up. There's a sucker born every minute. I just didn't want to believe it was me.

Now the postscript to this story is that I put the mid-range priced, hip-looking, pink and blue striped fleece hat with the ball on the crown on my daughter last night. She looked so cute and she pranced around the living room for an hour, both of us clearly enthralled with this new purchase. Of course, it was money well spent. What was I thinking. What kind of a price can you put on cuteness anyway?

I am sure I will be afflicted with this form of paralysis often over the next few weeks. I just hope my pocket book can withstand it.

Season's Greetings.