Bookshops should be realms of quiet adventure. You might enter with vague purpose, to satisfy a hankering for a taut thriller or complex history. And you might emerge later with an armful of volumes completely unrelated to your initial intent. Therein lies the appeal of browsing. You never know what treasures you'll unearth.

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That's if you're left to own devices and not, as so often happens to me, interrupted by a shop assistant who intrudes upon your reverie to ask if you need help. If I did, I'd ask for it. Nothing gets me out of a bookshop faster.

The reverse is true for those maddening big box hardware stores, where you do need help to find the left handed widget YouTube has said is essential for that minor repair. Invariably these places are staffed by people with an uncanny ability to disappear the moment you require help locating said widget.

Should you be lucky enough to corner a shop assistant, chances are they'll say, "That's a technical question. I'll find someone who can help." Then - poof - they vanish too.

In a capitalist society like ours, shopping should be a pleasant experience. The whole idea should be to ease open our wallets and extract the money inside, greasing the wheels of the economy. So why do some stores make it so painful?

You're tempted by a new pair of sneakers which you see on special at a chain store. Trouble is, there's gangsta rap playing so loudly the assistant can't hear the size you want to try on. By the time she's understood what you're after and returned with the right size, you've been driven out of the shop by the noise. No sale.

Foiled, you try the department store. It's mercifully quiet and the shoes you're stalking are there, more expensive but at least you're spared the rap "music". You're also spared any service because there's no shop assistant to find the size you want. After 10 minutes, you're wondering if they're wearing an invisibility cloak. Or if you are. No sale.

That mission has failed so you console yourself with another by walking into an electronics shop. And there it is, the gadget you've been reading about all month. Bright and new and shiny. You pick it up, turn it over, feel its heft. Curious to know how it works, you ask the shop assistant. Less than a minute into the conversation, you realise they have absolutely........

© Canberra Times