Shopping for the deranged

Taking Babes shopping is an exercise in marketing. You have to pitch it right.

It can't be a 'shopping trip', it's a 'spending trip'.
It's not 'going to the shops', it's 'a nice breakfast in town, a cup of coffee later, maybe some lunch (punctuated by the teeniest, tiniest bit of looking at clothes)'.
The shopping is not for 'necessary items' (despite the fact that he only owns one wearable pair of jeans and a couple of deoderant-encrusted t-shirts), it's for 'luxuries'. That way, when he fails to come home with another pair of wearable jeans, he hasn't in some way failed.

It's hell.

His feet get sore when he has to walk slowly.
The shops are too hot.
The sales people are assholes.
The changing rooms are too full.
The sizes are bizarre.
He doesn't own nice enough clothes to go shopping in.
He can't go in there because he's wearing a t-shirt he bought there last year.
He refuses to do anything resembling a mall because they're fake and depressing.
This is too expensive.
That's too cheap.
Does my bum look big in this?

AAAAAAAHHHHHHH! Any court in the land would acquit me.

This is what I have to endure just to have a man I can take to the pub and not be ashamed of. And all the while I have to feign a cheery lightheartedness he can anchor himself to to prevent him falling into pits of despair over the positioning of shirt collar buttons.

What a wuss. I don't like shopping either but suck it up, whinge-bag, you can't go to work naked.
Although...

So that's what we're doing on Thursday; Babes' annual shopping trip to replace most of his wardrobe. To cap it all, it's going to rain (one pro for malls).

He's been psyching himself up for days now (he needs adequate notice for these things, he can't do spontaneous shopping), he's taken the day off work (weekend shopping isn't even up for discussion), and if he flakes out on me at 11am I'll be forced to kill him.

This year he has to get new glasses too, which is a whole new world of indecision and neurosis. We'll do that last; the slightest setback could derail the whole day and I'm determined to come home with a completely reupholstered man. Sorry to compare you to a sofa, Babes, but if you mess this up I will knock the stuffing out of you.