Warming Up

Saturday 14th June 2003

Shopping for furniuture is possibly the most tiring activity known to man. Perhaps you might think that traversing the Antartic or climbing Mount Everest might expend more energy, but genuinely those things are easy compared with walking up and down Oxford St and Tottenham Court Road on a Saturday lunch-time.
I think what makes it tiring is the ample opportunities to rest during your quest. If there were comfy sofas and inviting beds littering the slopes of the Himalayas then I think the mountaineers would have a uch harder time getting to the top. They would just have a quick sit down, but they'd get comfortable and argue that they should be allowed keep the weight off their feet for another five minutes.
Plus when you're shopping for furniture you have to make decisions that you will be stuck with for the next decade. Choosing a washing machine is easy compared to having to decide whether the settee you are currently sitting on is more cosy than the one you were in half an hour ago in Habitat.
I think furniture shops work on the assumption that you will get to a point where you are so desperate to stop shopping that you will eventually just buy everything they have, so you can stop having to think about beds and just go home and sleep in one.
I made no real decisions. I will have to do this all over again. I hate choice and it is at times like this that communist Russia seems like an ideal political system.