“Sorry, you want a refund?” The red-haired cashier looks affronted. “Already?”

“She’s doing it.” The denim-clad woman points at me. “She’s returning everything.”

“Not everything,” I say hastily. “I’m just trying to shop calmly and with meaning.”

The red-haired cashier gives me a nasty look. “Well, please don’t.”

“I love that,” the denim-clad woman says emphatically. “ ‘Calmly and with meaning.’ OK, so what else in here don’t I need?” She rootles in her carrier bag and brings out a Las Vegas hip flask. “This. And this.” She produces a dollar-sign beach towel. “This is going back.”

At the far register, I can see a third woman pausing. “Wait a minute,” she says to her cashier. “Maybe I don’t need that flashing Las Vegas sign. Could I get a refund on that?”

“Stop it!” says the red-haired cashier, looking more and more flustered. “No more refunds!”

“You can’t refuse refunds!” objects the denim-clad woman. “I’m returning this too.” She plonks a shiny pink photo album onto the counter. “Who am I kidding? I’ll never put an album together.”

“I don’t want any of this!” The woman in the far line empties her entire carrier bag onto the counter. “I’m only shopping because I’m bored out of my skull.”

“Me too!”

Down the lines, I can see other women listening in and looking in their baskets and taking things out. It’s like some contagious wave of unshopping has hit the crowd.

“What’s going on?” A woman in a trouser suit is striding to the checkouts and addressing the cashiers furiously. “Why is everyone taking stuff out of their baskets?”

“All the customers are returning their items!” says the red-haired cashier. “They’ve gone crazy! That girl started it.” She points to me with a mean look.

“I didn’t mean to start anything!” I say hastily. “I just decided to—you know—think about my purchases. Buy only what I need.”

“Buy only what you need?” The woman in the trouser suit looks as though I’ve uttered something unspeakably profane. “Ma’am, could you please finalize your purchases as quickly as possible and leave the store?”

—

Honestly. You’d think I’d been single-handedly trying to bring down capitalism or something. The manageress in the trouser suit actually hissed at me as she frog-marched me out: “Did you see what happened in Japan? Do you want that happening here? Do you?”

I mean, I felt bad, because it did start getting a bit out of hand. Everyone was taking stuff out of their baskets and dumping it back on the shelves and asking total strangers, “Why are we shopping?” and “Do you need that?”—while all the sales staff were rushing around in a fluster, crying, “Everyone loves a souvenir!” and “This one is half price! Take three!”

Although it’s not my fault, is it? I mean, all I did was point out that no one is ever going to wear a dice necklace.

In the end, the only thing I ended up buying was a little jigsaw puzzle for Minnie. I didn’t feel any great buzz as I bought it, but it was a different sort of satisfaction. As I took my receipt ($7.32), I felt kind of calm. Empowered. I even took the feedback card and ticked Awesome.