Published: May 20, 2008 09:06 am         

THEREFORE I AM: Mundane shopping leads to impulsive conclusions

What do the following items have in common? Scotch tape, Twizzlers, recordable CDs, breath mints, Sharpie pen, hand sanitizer, People magazine, a tiny pack of Kleenex, garbage bags and a disposable camera. They're all things you can expect to see at the check-out lane. They're called impulse items, but I don't buy them very often. Apparently I'm not terribly impulsive.

Being a stay-at-home dad, I do the bulk of our family's mundane shopping. (There are different types of shopping, as you may or may not know, but that's a column for another week.) Suffice it to say that I'm on a first-name basis with our local Sprawl-Mart greeters, a relationship I'd be more than happy to conclude. There was a time when the whole "mega-mart" concept was novel and interesting ("Cool! I can buy milk, wiper blades and underwear in the same store!"), but that day has long since passed. Now I just want to get in, grab what I need, and go home as quickly as humanly possible so I can figure out something to do with the 312 plastic bags I just acquired.

But it's never that quick and easy, is it? The store is so large I have to park in the next county and hitchhike to the front door. Once inside, I feel as though I've stepped into the last scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark where the Ark is crated up and stashed away in a sea of boxes in a giant government warehouse. "I need a replacement remote control." No problem: It's right next to the Fountain of Youth map, wherever THAT is.

Nevertheless, the search continues for milk, wiper blades and underwear. Bloodied and dispirited, I emerge from the retail jungle limping toward the check-out lane to tally my quarry.

Time to go home? Not so fast, Indy. I still have to pay, and despite a store being so large that it has divergent subcultures within it, there are only, oh, three cashiers on duty at any one time. Oh sure, there are approximately 2,000 or so actual check-out lanes, but only three are manned. I presume the other 1,997 check-out lanes are reserved for Black Friday duty.

I do the math. There are roughly 400 people shopping in the store, and there are three cashiers through whom each customer must eventually pass. I estimate an average of four minutes per customer transaction for the cashier to scan their items, bag them in the aforementioned 312 plastic bags, and collect adequate funding. So 400 customers multiplied by four minutes each and then divided by three cashiers equals ... well, I don't know exactly, but it's more than enough time for me to peruse the check-out lane impulse items.

Let me start with this: If I were a woman, I would buy those tiny packs of Kleenex. With two little kids in tow, we're constantly in need of a tissue. It's not as though my kids' noses produce flowing rivers of snot, but a Kleenex is great for wiping off a face, wiping french fry grease off your fingers, or sopping up a spilled drink. The problem is I'm a man. (I guess it's not really a problem to be a man, but you see where I'm going.) A man doesn't have anywhere to stow a pack of Kleenex, not even a tiny pack. A pack of Kleenex necessitates a purse, so strike that item off my impulse list.

Twizzlers? They're tasty, but no thanks. It's hard enough to limit the influx of candy in our house. With kids 5 and 7, somehow candy just appears. I'm not buying more, so scratch another impulse buy.

Recordable CDs are a savvy choice for market managers to place in the impulse item. If you really need one that moment, chances are you'll pick one up, even though a two-pack of writable CDs is woefully overpriced. Every year or so I buy a spindle of 100 CDs for maybe 14 cents per CD and use them as needed. I'm too geeky and too well-prepared for that impulse buy.

The next item on the list I have at the beginning of today's column is breath mints. I buy breath mints periodically. I'm not a caveman.

Sharpie pens? No thanks. My kids will just swipe them, and I'll never see the pens again.

I use hand sanitizer frequently, particularly during the cold and flu season. Kids want to show you everything, especially their grubby little microbes. What I do, however, is buy a small container and a giant, industrial-sized container. Then I refill the small container from the giant container. A two-ounce container of Purell is, I don't know, maybe $3 at the check-out lane. A 250-ounce container of Purell is, I don't know, maybe $4 back on the shelves. You do the math.

Peoplemagazine? As I stated before, I'm a guy. No thanks.

Garbage bags seem like a totally random choice as an impulse item. Who decided to put those in the check-out lane? You might as well put cans of WD-40 up there. Oh, wait, they do that, too.

Finally we come to the disposable camera. This may have made sense five years ago, but today the chances are extraordinarily high that you are carrying either an itty-bitty digital camera of your own or your itty-bitty cellphone has an itty-bitty digital camera built right in. A film camera? That's so 2002, and I was so much more impulsive back then.

David Spates is a Knoxville resident and Crossville Chronicle contributor whose column is published each Tuesday.