A few months ago I bought a couple of new duvets. They were pretty bulky and the lady at Farmers put them in one big bag each. I got the bus home and it took a bit of manoeuvring to get me and my duvets on to the bus. One man commented, “Been on a bit of a shopping spree, have ya?” which I thought was a bit weird because, uh, I only bought two duvets. Then, later on, a lady spied my bags and said, “Oh, been shopping! Good on you!”

I’m pretty sure it was obvious that my bags contained duvets or some sort of large pillowy objects. I don’t get how that translates into me having been on a massive shopping spree.

Then on Monday I bought four magazine storage boxes from Whitcoulls and the guy put them into one massive bag. And throughout the day I kept getting comments from people, like “You’ve been shopping!” Yes, indeed I did go to a shop and buy some things.

The funny thing was that the four boxes were worth a mere $20 in total. If I’d bought a book and a DVD from Whitcoulls it would have been worth more, but they would have all gone into a little bag that wouldn’t even have been noticed let alone commented on.

Or I could have bought some extravagant piece of jewellery and stashed it away in my handbag and then no one could have seen the fruit of my shopstravaganza.

What is it about large bags that get people so excited? Well, it seems that the symbol of a woman with large shopping bags has come to represent a shopping spree. Check out the shopping-themed photos this photo agency has.

So it’s funny to think that while I was struggling to get the giant plastic bag filled with two-for-$10 magazine boxes on to the Link bus, my fellow passengers were probably thinking I’d been on a mad shopping spree.