Reasons not to go shopping:

1. People without prams always take the 'parents with prams' car spots. I know. I looked. They don't have baby seats in the back. Then I have to trudge on the road while cars whizz around the pram and it generally starts raining (poor me).

2. Bubbie likes me pushing the pram around the shopping centre, but has a distinct dislike of me stopping. Which means I choose my purchases at lightspeed. So if you're a rellie or friend and get a very strange birthday present - now you know why. I've taken to internet shopping which is fun but kind of like the lucky dip at a primary school fair. You always think you're going to get something awesome - but it ends up being a plastic ring or miniture deck of cards. Last week, I bought hubby some nice Calvin Klein underwear and only discovered when it arrived, that sure it was Calvin Klein underwear -- circa 1985. lol. I was all 'honey, they're still in the box, the Op Shop will like them!' but he said 'no, i'll wear them' with the expression of someone sentenced to enternal dagdom.

3. I hate that I seem to be physically incapable of telling the salesmen in those temporary stalls down the promanades to leave me alone. Worse than that, I allow myself to be pulled into their makeshift space while they do the hard sell. I had to wonder about those Jericho people today though. This is perhaps the crappiest sales hook I've ever heard:

"can i ask you if you use any eyecream? because LOOK AT THOSE LINES AND BAGS UNDER YOUR EYES!".

I must be tired because I not only let him say this, I let him poke under my eye with some cream and then shove a mirror in my face to show me how the lines had miraculously disappeared. Yeah right. It was only when he said 'let me take a photo!' that i snapped out of my daze and ran for the nearest bookshop. Take a photo? What the?

4. Random people like to touch babies. Who knew? They peer into the pram, then after the obligatory compliment, paw her while she squirms. I mean, i don't have a problem with stopping and letting them coo at her, of course i don't! But keep your dirty-i-just-ate-a-dimsim-hands to yourselves people!

5. One step worse. They poke the baby and then say 'isn't she sweet. And wow, look at you, another on the way already.'
OH MG people - NEVER tell another woman she's pregnant unless she first volunteers this information. Now, to someone's shame (not sure if it's me because i obviously haven't shed the kilos fast enough or if it's them) I would usually let a person get away with this, not wanting to embarrass them like they've just embarrassed me. But heck, I've about had enough. So, for all of us who don't lose that baby fat like Nicole Ritchie, I said:
"No, I just haven't gotten over this one yet. But lady, you have *no* tact."

6. I always forget the one thing I actually went to buy and end up with a bootload of stuff I had no intention of buying. Am I the only one this happens to??