I’d like to buy a vowel please…

I like shopping. I love to shop for presents for other people. I adore shopping for presents for me. I especially like to find something I love on sale. But I even love to window shop, to look at all the pretty things in jewellery shop windows, even though I rarely have any desire to buy them. I guess I’m a bit of a shopaholic. But, the first step is admitting you have a problem, right? So, for those of you who are still in denial about your own shopping addiction, I have decided to compile my own list of the top ten signs that you are a shopaholic:

1. The words ‘new’ and ‘improved’ bring tears of joy to your eyes.
2. As you are walking by your favourite shoe store, the sales clerk waves or greets you by name. (Okay, who am I kidding? I never just can walk BY my favourite shoe store!)
3. When choosing your dentist, accountant or manicurist, you always choose the one closest to the mall.
4. You spend more than 10 minutes a day trying to think of things you need at the store.
5. When you can’t think of anything, you misplace, shred, or eat the last of something just so you can go try to find the ‘new’ or ‘improved’ version.
6. You decide where to meet your best friend for lunch based on which of your favourite stores are nearby.
7. There is at least one unused item in your pantry/closet/bookcase that you were sure you would eat/wear/read but is now past its ‘best before date.’
8. You can smell a shoe store a block away.
9. The women or men you used to undress with your eyes, you now fantasize about re-dressing in the latest fashions.
10. You are happy to admit you have a shopping addiction because you saw this great self-help book on the subject and it was half-price.