Pop legend Madonna once sang 'we are living in a material world and I am a material girl'. Whilst I wouldn't consider myself to be a girl, the fact the Christmas sales are one of my favourite parts of the Christmas holidays is perhaps indication of my secret 'material girl' persona.
However, after my two-day binge at two different shopping centres, I'm starting to think otherwise. All I've managed to do in the last couple of days is buy stuff not in the sales, have arguments with a series of ethnic minorities, get up earlier than most postmen and knacker myself to the point of tears. Now that I've finally sat down for the first time in about 48 hours, I think it's time to reflect on the wonderful British tradition that is the Christmas sales.
Here in the May household, we take this sales business pretty seriously. Bluewater opened at 11am on Boxing Day, so naturally, we left home at quarter to Ten. Once establishing a parking space those turning up in the afternoon could only dream of, we headed to Hollister to take advantage of their world-famous sale...(yeah it doesn't actually exist). Despite being there half hour before opening, a queue had formed outside already, leaving the pretty-faced employees of the Californian boutique completely dumbfounded as to how to deal with such crowds so early. It's absolutely crazy that a shop can be so cool and fashionable yet so bloody popular. I overheard the employees saying that some had been queuing since 10am. The only thing that would explain such bonkers queuing would be for Hollister to be selling a new Harry Potter book.
We went into several other shops but I wasn't really in the mood for anything else. Bluewater was packed tighter than an IKEA wardrobe. I honestly think disabled people and pushchairs should be banned from shopping centres on days like Boxing Day. In some shops which have aisles thinner than a submarine corridor, a pushchair can often be as obstructive as a jackknifed lorry. And then some of the kids are literally like the little shits you see on Supernanny. The amount of times I had to restrain myself from shouting 'control your children or control your vagina!' was in double figures. Even in the hustle and bustle of sales shopping, that might have just got a few dodgy stares.
For the May family, one entire day of sifting through cut-priced nonsense isn't enough so my parents woke me up at 7.30 this morning to do it all over again. Because Marks & Spencer have no regard for the mental health of their staff, they opened at 7am. By the time we'd arrived at Lakeside at 8.30, the place looked like a warzone. Ironically, the whole place was populated by Arabs/Indians/Middle-Easterners, a set of people that had been surprisingly absent from yesterday's excursion to Bluewater. Now in the past when I've been shopping, I've bought quite a lot of stuff, but the amounts I have previously purchased were put in the shade by the biblical amounts Dick, Tom and Sanjeev were buying. I don't get what the fascination is with people in burkhas buying entire shops, but it was almost as though they weren't going shopping for another year. I saw one till that had clocked up £1,200. And as for Next, it looked like the Next that had been hit by the IRA bomb in Manchester in 1996. It had opened at an absolutely ridiculous 5am and judging by the state of it when I went in there later in the morning, it looked like it had been open that long. Imagine the scene in The Mummy where the scarab beetles engulf the poor Arab guide and all that's left once the little beetles scurry off is the juicy flesh. Now swap the scarab beetles for the Arab shoppers and the dead Arab for the shelves in Next and you have an idea of what the place looked like.
Shoppers of an Eastern heritage closing in on the last sales item
But going shopping in shops with sales on is fairly amateur. Instead, me and my brother ended up in shops like Cult and All Saints; shops that are more likely to take off and relocate amongst the clouds than have a sale. I have to say that All Saints is one of the gloomiest and most depressing shops on Earth; it was like going shopping with a Dementor. The remainder of my money went on items that weren't in a sale (surprise surprise) and probably wouldn't ever be in a sale. My Mum picked up a few bits and pieces that outside of Christmas sales shopping would be described as 'cheap tat'. But come December 26th and 27th, my parents let their hair down more than a newly single Katie Price. And so for the second time in just over a week, my Dad was left to play a combination of Tetris and Jenga to get all our newly acquired swag in the back of the car.
So what have I learnt from my two day struggle to save a few quid? Firstly, it's unlikely I'm going to save any money seeing as I'm quite partial to stuff that could only be cheaper if I'd stolen it. Secondly, I hate whiney little Asian children, especially at Nine in the morning. Thirdly, I hate whiney little Asian women who couldn't control their bowels, let alone their own children. Then there's my new-found opinion that All Saints is actually Azkaban. And let's not forget my final lesson that we do indeed live in a 'material world', and to save myself the hell that is sales shopping, I should probably just stay at home and do it all online. But then, you don't get to see Abu Hamza and family walk out of shops with a country's worth of clothes. And where's the fun in missing that?
