My shopping

There are some things we have to do every day. Shopping is one of them. Some people hate it and find it boring. So they make a list of what they need and run through stores buying the needed things. Sometimes they even don't care about the priсe. They go from store to store looking for goods of better quality and lower price. They don't worry about the time they spend shopping. Many people, especially women like shopping.

My mom tells me very often to buy some foodstuff. There are different shops in our neighbourhood – groceries, bakeries, butcher's shops. They are rather small and you have to go from one shop to another to buy everything which is on your shopping list. These small shops boast that they have in stock everything you need. Sometimes it is not so. For example, you might want a particular brand of yoghurt or skimmed milk and they may not have them. So if you are fussy about the things you eat, you will have to look for some other place where they sell your favourite yoghurt and milk.

This is why I prefer to do shopping in these big self-service places called supermarkets. I can buy almost everything I need – meat and poultry, cheeses and sausages, fish, frozen food, sugar and salt, dairy products, vegetables and fruits, candies, cookies and bread, of course. All items are neatly wrapped and conveniently displayed on special shelves or racks or kept in refrigerators. I can walk among the rows with a shopping basket or with a trolley, choosing things. I can take and study them, compare with others, put them back and take again later. Nobody tells me to hurry with the shopping. Finally I have to go and pay at the cashier's desk.

In many supermarkets, besides foodstuff, I can also buy things which I might need in my household, for instance various detergents, soap, shampoo, toothpaste and other toiletries. They also sell stationery – paper, pens and pencils, notebooks, files, paper clips, drawing pins, rulers, rubbers – in a word, everything I may need for my lectures at the University. If I need newspapers and magazines, I can also buy them at a supermarket. Of course, there are things which are not on sale in supermarkets. In this case I have to look for them in some special stores.

If I need to buy clothes, footwear, I can do it in small outlets. I don't like them very much. For one thing, they are quite expensive places. I feel more comfortable in big department stores or in huge malls, where I can walk from one department to another. The only problem is that every now and then somebody from the personnel comes up to me and asks if I need help. And this can happen dozens of times so that by the end of my shopping tour I am tired of saying "No, thanks, I'm just looking."

I must say that many people enjoy shopping. Many families do it at their weekends. Parents bring their offspring, and they all walk along the galleries of the mall, either window-shopping, that is, gaping at the things displayed before them, or buying something, or having lunch at one of the mall's fast food restaurants. And these excursions can last from morning till late afternoon! I should say visiting big malls is one of the favourite pastimes for many people!