Forced Outtings @ The Wrong Times!

One of the strangest things about Western Australia is that they are the only state left in Australia that has heavily restricted "trading hours" (when the stores are open). Most of the stores are open from 9 or 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. M0nday through Saturday with late night trading hours on Thursday until 9 .m. and closed on Sundays and all public holidays.

Yes - closed on Sundays - it sucks!


This forces people to plan ahead or else. For example, over Easter weekend, the stores were closed on Good Friday, Easter Sunday, and had limited trading hours on "Easter Monday" (a public holiday). So, I went grocery shopping with Loco on Thursday for the long weekend. Needless to say, we were not the only people shopping and it was a mad house! Parking was horrible and we waited in line for twenty minutes to check-out. We survived and learned an important lesson about what days to NOT shop on - LOL!

Today, we decided to try comparison shopping for a new television and other small appliances as a family. We didn't get on the road until almost noon, after a relaxing/lazy morning, and picked a bad time for the kids to be good. I swear they are not always crazy, but it seems like it lately!

What ends up happening is everyone gets crabbier (if possible) and we return home with nothing accomplished! It is frustrating . . .