how to distinguish between a normal person and a shopaholic

normal person: feels the need to pee, sees a gasoline station, parks in gasoline station, pees. problem averted.

shopaholic: feels the need to pee, sees a gasoline station, IGNORES gasoline staion, drives like a madwoman until she reaches the mall, makes a beeline for the bathroom, curses everyone in line for being too damn slow while peeing, finally pees...

... and then she realizes she's never been to the annex of this mall before, go visits the annex, buys:
1. contact lenses and solution
2. new shirt and jacket
3. kikay stuff
4. yet another shirt
5. christmas decorations simply because they were on sale

there was also this half hour spent on looking at shoes, contemplating whether she should buy the gold shoes for her cousin's wedding SOMETIME IN JULY... of next year.

and there was this half hour spent looking at glasses thinking if she should get a new one too.

and there's also this sidetrip to the grocery to check out what they had there on sale.

clearly, for the shopaholic, what would have taken five minutes tops in a gasoline station isn't an option. screw her kidneys and bladder problems.

three kilometers and the need to pee -- which takes forever in saturday afternoon traffic -- is just a small sacrifice in exchange for the shiny shopping bags that she'll be going home with.