I think it’s safe to say that women love to shop. In fact, they love it so much that they’re happy just to go around a store looking for nothing in particular. It gives them a high just being among all these goodies just waiting to be chosen.

Add the word “SALE” and the intensity doubles. Don’t even mention “CLEARANCE”!

Most men, on the other hand, don’t care much for shopping. You can plainly see this if you go around malls and you see a man accompanying his wife in a department store. He is standing around morosely while his wife decides whether to get the blue skirt or the green shirt or both.

In big malls abroad, there are couches provided for men so that they can sit while waiting for their wives. You’re in luck if you find an unoccupied seat.

Mystery

Do you want to experience boredom? Accompany your wife to the supermarket, especially the produce section. It seems like it takes forever to choose one item. Just selecting the right fruit, for example, is a complete mystery to me.

My wife would start picking up one and then, for some reason, discarding that and moving on to another one beside it. This goes on for a while before she finally decides she has found what she had been looking for. And I could swear it was the very first one she rejected to begin with. But then again, what do I know?

One of the most intriguing things I find is when two or more women shop abroad. This happens a lot when we travel with a group of friends. Our wives usually go their separate ways to shop but meet up at a certain predetermined time and place. This is when a strange phenomenon occurs.

As soon as they get together from shopping, and even before reaching our hotel, right there on the street, they would start opening their packages and showing each other the items they bought, usually at a bargain.

This inspires the others to go back to that store so they can check out other items on sale. I thought this was just a Filipino thing until, one day, I saw a group of non-Filipino women who were part of a tour group and they were doing exactly the same thing.

I mentioned earlier that men are not into shopping. For example, I go to a store knowing what I want to buy and when I find it, I get it, pay for it, and go. Like most men I know.

Exceptions

Of course there are exceptions. One of them was my longtime show-biz partner and compadre, the late Subas Herrero. When we had shows abroad, there would always be a lull where we had time to ourselves. Inevitably that would mean shopping. And Subas was ready for it.

He was a meticulous shopper. He would enter a store armed with his cell phone, ready to take down the price of whatever it was that he found interesting. He would then go to several stores and go through the same routine.

Now armed with different prices from different stores, he finally would decide which store offered the best price and that’s the only time he would buy whatever it was. And he would be extremely proud of himself. He felt like he had beaten the system.

I can’t imagine how anyone can spend an hour in a store just enjoying the experience of being there. Oh, wait … unless it’s an electronic/computer shop. But that’s understandable because there are so many important items there. Right, guys?