Attention, satire!

Outside the cabin door: the hero of shopping

Attention, satire! Hero of shopping Gernot Kurz

(Bild: Kurz)

What does a woman do when she is really angry with her partner, wants to torment him or even get rid of him? - She drags him shopping with her.

There is hardly a more pitiful sight than that of a man trotting along behind the woman between the clothes racks, trying to say something clever about every item held out to him. After "Yes eh" to the question "Do you like that?" and "Sure, darling!" to the question "Can I wear that?" and "But go on, darling!" to the question "Is that too youthful?", the shopping companion's vocabulary is as exhausted as his physical strength.

Pulse of a fighter pilot
Looking at the man leaning against the clothes rack, you might think that his resting pulse rate should be just above zero, but this is a fatal misjudgement, as British researchers have discovered. They accompanied shoppers, monitored their bodily functions and found alarming results: Pulse and heart rate are about the same as those of fighter pilots in action!

What is justifiable for these steely-eyed daredevils can lead to serious health problems in the long term for us, who have to manage our strength.

And at the next stop after the clothes racks, the changing rooms, it gets even worse.

Standing in front of the cubicle door, handing things over and taking them off, judging the clothes you've tried on, whether you like them, don't like them or don't feel any emotion at all - only to suddenly be tested with trick questions such as: "Is this too revealing on me?" - Fortunately, our reflexes still work. No man who wants regular sex and hot meals would say yes.

So it can almost be a relief to be sent back from base camp to the vast expanse of the store to get a different size of clothing.

However, men have also been lost in the process. They have been picked up days later at the other end of the city, completely neglected, dehydrated, the dress still in their clammy fingers.

We are then brought home and handed over to our loved ones. And we will heroically go with you again next time. Because we love you.