Shopping "trips"

Before every major trip, I have a moment of self-talk that goes, now don't buy stupidly. I re-live mistakes of trips past.

My errors fall into these categories
:

1. An item so trendy or idiosyncratic to the place I've visited that when I returned home, it was unwearable except to a costume party. Many apply the Would I Wear This in Paris? rule, but one should also apply the Will I Wear This at Home? corollary.
Shopping Slip: Heavy, neck-numbing crystal shoulder-duster earrings suitable only for 80s disco party

2. Something a traveling co
mpanion loved, and urged on me, to which, in a moment of girlfriend solidarity, I succombed. Or vice-versa: It suited her so well, I wanted one too.
Shopping Slip: Agnes b. tees, too skimpy on me.


3. Purchase made after too much wine for lunch.

Shopping Slip (or should I say Sip?): A vendeuse in a lingerie boutique sold me an exquisite lace bra so out of my size range that I wonder how I even tried it on. Or maybe she wrapped the wrong size, or whashhh happened?

4. Oh no, I'm leaving!
I mentally re
view the purchases I made last fall in Paris and assess their wisdom. Only one clunker: a Monoprix tote that looked funky in Paris and now, just cheap. I bought it on my last day, which is a dangerous shopping zone. You're thinking of the bills arriving, you're bereft leaving Paris. Beware "Just one more tiny thing".

Of course my pockets are never as deep as I'd wish, but even a one-euro art postcard gives pleasure, and the caw of a raven waking me, in this apartment in the Quartier Latin, is an abiding joy.

Comments

materfamilias said…
I'm getting smarter about the shopping errors but I've got my list of past mistakes as well -- don't keep them 'round to taunt me, though.
But all that part of your post pales when I see the photo of that wonderful apartment -- is that what you're going back to in the next few days? Fabulous! Lucky you.
Duchesse said…
materfamilias: Yes, that's our apt. What you don't see is that the huge casement windows have a view to two courtyards- three if you count a tiny one in the kitchen. An oasis on the Left Bank. I consider this my "home" that other people just happen to live in 50 other weeks per year.
wowza! what a gorgeous apartment... we stayed on the left bank and had a lovely view of the garbage bins and trucks that came to empty them. (we did, but i speak in jest -- i loved our little room on the rue monge).

i know what you mean about shopping, though. i have gotten quite stern with myself over the years. i have to be able to use/wear whatever it is regularly, and i have to say, "if i leave here without this, will it haunt me forever?" very few things do.
WendyB said…
LOL @ "shopping sip."
materfamilias said…
So you've got a view to one of those marvelous courtyards I try to peer into when their inhabitants leave or enter -- those glimpses of a magical, interior Paris. What a wonderful "home" you have found for yourself in that beautiful city.
Duchesse said…
bonnie: Even things left behind can often be ordered later, when one is in a major city. I've done this a time or two.

materfamilias: Maybe next time, a month since it's so much cheaper the longer we stay.

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