Most women have no idea what men have to go through to get them that Christmas gift...
SHE must have picked up my scent when I passed the chocolate Santa display, and furtively circled through the Papuan headhunter jungle of shrunken wicker baskets. As I stood gazing dumbstruck at the hand-embroidered tray laden with assorted suntan lotions and placenta creams, she struck.
"Lovely, isn't it?" she asked, her predatorial gleam fuelled by the thought of another commission.
I quickly examined myself. She couldn't really be talking to me. My Dravidian melanin content doesn't really justify a Quick Tan Gel, even though we had not seen the sun for some days. I licked my finger and rubbed my skin to make sure.
"Can I help you find something?" She sidled up to me, picking up another whicker tray filled with what looked like assorted soaps and shampoos and finished in crepe paper and cellophane, thrusting it towards me.
In the background, another sales assistant picked up something else and began to circle. I've got a pair of Rottweilers at home. Their hunting patterns when they are stalking birds are not that different.
"Actually, I'm looking for something for my grandmother," I said. "And I've already decided what that's going to be — a gift voucher."
She raised her eyebrows and gave what I'm sure she thought was a knowing, understanding smile.
"I know," she said. "It's always for grandmothers or mothers but never for wives or girlfriends, especially with perfumes." She added, conspiratorially, "Let's see what we can find for your ... grandmother then, shall we?"
My brother was walking past laden with packages, and I grabbed him and pulled him across as a foil.
"No, look. We've done our Christmas buying already. And now I'm going to get a gift voucher for my grandmother. Really, honestly." We fled.
Defensive shopping.
It's a skill most men have not acquired, poor bastards. They make the mistake of wandering, lemming-like, into the brightly-lit glassy sections of the department stores where the stalkers await the feast.
The perfume counters are the deadliest. Instead of the nicely-presented and aesthetically appealing bottle of Chanel No.5, they will sell you a collection of exactly the sort of stuff that your wife or girlfriend will pick up at the supermarket, at a vastly inflated price.
And you won't know that you've been had until you've taken it to her, and she unwraps it and gives you The Look...
So when my brother told me that he was looking for perfume for his wife, I threw up my arms in terror. "Are you crazy? Perfume? No way! What you need to get her is a Wonderbra."
What's that, he wanted to know.
"It makes even the most withdrawn personalities rise to the fore, without any of the physical discomfort that came to be associated with the underwired products of the previous years," I said, as I lured him down towards the women's clothing section. "And it's extremely politically incorrect too. Now then, what's her bra size?"
Here's the second lesson. Most men do not know their wife's bra size. More's the pity, because knowing your wife's bra size is one of the weapons in your defensive shopping armory.
You know how tall she is, because she looms over you sometime, and you know how wide she is, because you hugged her quite recently, but you can't really buy any clothing for a woman if you don't know her bra size.
Not that you really need defensive shopping weaponry to buy a bra, because the lingerie aisles are never patrolled by the hunter salespeople.
No man in his right mind normally wanders down there, but it's really one of the safer places in the shop.
"Lingerie's a safe buy," I advised, when it became clear that the bra size was not available. "It's appealing to you, and to her. And she doesn't have to worry about what others may think about your taste in clothes.
"The trick is to make sure that it's comfortable. Avoid these." I pointed out a Playboyesque polyester teddy with harsh inner seams. "And stay away from cute." I pointed out the floor length oversized T-shirts with smiling Love is slogans. "Cute is unsexy."
He proceeded to pick out what I thought was an extremely tasteful outfit, paid at the till, and emerged, unmolested and triumphant.
I mentally awarded him a defensive shopping certificate.