It’s Tuesday, and I am still wearing the same clothes I wore to the airport on Sunday and going through Charlotte and then arriving in Munich. Kaia is also wearing the same onesie, as well. She only has one backup onesie outfit in her diaper bag, and that’s it. As the delayed checked bag was supposed to arrive in Munich today, we still have not heard anything from the airport or airline regarding where our bag is. All I know from the updates in my AA app is that the luggage has been tracked as having arrived at Munich airport this morning, and then after that, there’s no updates. What was I supposed to do?

At a minimum, given it’s late autumn, it’s not like my clothes are sweaty and smelly from hot weather, but I really did want clean underwear and socks. And my baby really does need other clothes to wear, especially since her solid feeds are so messy, even while out and about. So we went shopping today at H&M and Zara, and I immediately was reminded of exactly how much I hate shopping in store. Shopping online is so easy: it’s from the comfort of wherever I am in front of my computer. I can multitask while doing it. I can edit my cart and update over the course of a few days and change my mind. Sure, I can’t try on clothes, so there’s no guarantee it will fit properly or look right on my figure. But hey, that level of convenience is fine if the store has a good return policy (e.g. free online returns with pre-paid label or I can return in store to the location closest to me).

You would think I would have gotten excited to hear that I was able to buy new clothes and get them fully reimbursed by AA, but no, I just felt irritated that I still didn’t have my bag, and I had to waste time getting new clothes and trying them on. While everyone wants to look good in the clothes they wear, I am pretty utilitarian about my clothes: I want them to fit and be comfortable for whatever I am wearing them for, but outside of that, I have little to no attachment to any of them. That’s why in an ideal world, I would not own any clothes other than underwear/bras/socks/maybe hats/gloves, and literally everything else would be rented or borrowed on demand. How much more space would I have if my closets didn’t have all these annoying clothes in them! And for Kaia, it really wasn’t enjoyable finding things for her, either. Chris didn’t want to help pick anything out; he wanted to be out of there ASAP and hated the time spent there more than I did. H&M’s selection for babies as young as her, at least at the location we went to, was pretty terrible to nonexistent; most of their clothes were for 2+ years of age. Zara had a better selection, but still, no onesies and mostly favored older kids, not babies. I just felt impatient and wanted to get it done as soon as possible.

This is why I get annoyed when people make sexist generations and assume all women love shopping. My uncle, to this day, still assumes I love shopping and am faking it when I say I hate it. What is he basing his ridiculous assumption on… Nothing that is actually about ME!