What is shopping?

Bruce, of all the questions you have asked during the time we have been having our sessions together this has been the most unexpected. Initially I was completely perplexed as to why you were concerned with retail matters. I could not see how a more developed understanding of shopping would advance your therapy.

Dogs do not buy things. Humans do buy things, and indeed shopping is sometimes referred to as ‘retail therapy’. Shopping for some humans is seen as a distraction from the cares and woes of workaday life, a bit like ‘Holiday’ that we talked about last week. (When you think about these last words I have used, do not allow yourself to fall into semantic confusion. I do not mean that human beings are bought and sold by means of shopping, that is done through the operation of Capitalism which is another issue entirely.) I mean that the very act of shopping is, in itself, seen by many people as a solution to problems. This is truly perplexing.

Take for example the problem of the regeneration of the cities and towns of West Yorkshire where you live. This is a subject close to The Mommy’s heart. I understand you have been the recipient of her views on this subject, and because you have appeared to listen to her adoringly as she speaks, she is under the impression that you know quite a bit about this subject. My advice is not to disillusion her.

What has perplexed both The Mommy and Satan is the obsession that the civic leaders of West Yorkshire have with shopping as the sole instrument of regeneration. At a time when the smooth-faced men have taken everyone’s money and put it back in their banks, it is somehow seen as essential that more shops are built. Going into these shops, our leaders believe people will spend the money they no longer have. The Mommy and Satan believe plans for regeneration would do better to address the current shortage of affordable housing, preferably before the UK Construction Industry goes belly up.

Anyway I digress, but I hope you have been paying attention. Luckily, I managed to have a word with Satan when I first got notice of your question. He believes you are perplexed because whenever you are being left in the house on your own, The Mommy or Satan put your bed by the front door and tell you that they are ‘just going shopping’. This can occur any time of day or night and sometimes you notice bags of shopping coming in with them when they return and sometimes there doesn’t appear to be evidence of any shopping actually having taken place.

Satan believes that, if you could understand the concept of shopping, you would have gained the impression that there is a very liberal dispensation of Opening Hours in West Yorkshire and that shopping is a very hit and miss affair in terms of tangible outcomes.

My advice is to stay relaxed about this, I refer you to earlier conversations we have had about Ritual. ‘Just going shopping’ is a ritual valediction that signals in the famous words of General Douglas MacArthur ‘I will return’.