There is nothing I hate more about international travel than duty free shops. As soon as I step into one I am accosted by the scents of every perfume and cologne ever invented being sold at great bargain prices like $500 instead of $520. Unable to justify purchasing perfume on an installment plan, I usually (always) pass up this deal of a lifetime.
But the fun doesn't end there. Oh no. Every duty free shop in the entire world is the exact same. Besides the endless shelves of perfume/cologne, you can also choose from amazing selections such as Tolberone chocolate, gummy bears, and copious amounts of alcohol. I’m not sure how it was decided that international travellers simultaneously desire alcohol, perfume, and candy. I must have missed the meeting where that resolution was passed. (Let the record reflect that I would have voted against it.)
When I enter a duty free shop—which you are usually forced to pass through in order to get to your gate due to the devious planning of airport designers who in my (always correct) opinion are pure evil—I immediately lose all excitement that my international trip has bestowed upon me to the feelings of despair and imminent destruction that begin welling up. It takes every ounce (or gram, I should say, since I now live in the wonderful land of the Metric system) of energy and self-control I have, to manage to drag my poor pathetic body through the shop and back into the real airport where my gate is. Someday I will get stuck in an exceptionally long duty free shop and I will be unable to make it though. Hours after my flight departs without me they will find my quivering body curled up on the floor twitching and mumbling incoherently, bathed in perfume and chocolate.
Duty free shops are a giant con on the list of life. They should all be destroyed.
