It is a popular belief that all women love shopping. However, I do not think this is true.
I am a girl but I am not fond of shopping. Trudging around from shop to shop carrying heavy packages and shopping bags is not my idea of fun. Ever since I was a child, I have dreaded shopping. Unfortunately for me, my mother takes no notice of my protests. She always takes me along with her for her weekly shopping sprees because I am her only daughter.
I dislike shopping because I find it a very boring activity. Unlike most girls, I am not the least interested in looking at clothes, shoes, or bags. My mother takes a long time to make up her mind about anything she wants to purchase so shopping means hours of walking and waiting. What can be more boring for a young person like me?
It is worse when there is a sale. Like everyone else, my mother would happily plunge into the crowd to hunt for good bargains at a sale. But I just want to find a quiet corner where I can escape from being shoved and elbowed. The noisy crowd plus the noisy music blaring from the public address system really gets on my nerves.
The only time I find pleasure on a shopping trip is if I get to browse at the bookshop. That is one place which is usually quiet and peaceful. I get to look through books and magazines without the obligation of buying any. Sometimes, I try to persuade my mother to let me wait for her in the bookshop while she does her shopping. I do not mind spending hours in a bookshop.
Not only women like to shop. Some men love shopping too. Take my uncle and his son, for instance. The two of them accompany my aunt whenever she goes shopping and they even go shopping on their own. They do not mind carrying shopping bags and spending a whole afternoon hunting for a particular pair of shoes or cooking pot.
In the end, I guess that anyone can enjoy shopping if he or she has the freedom to choose where to go and what to look at. As for me, I would still prefer someone else to do the shopping for me while I laze in my comfortable bed with an interesting book to read.
Vocabulary
shoved pushed
noisy full of noise
