“I GOT lost and started crying.”

A shopper’s recollection of her first time in Ikea caught my eye last week. People have been swapping stories on Twitter, of their experiences on their first visit to the mammoth store.

Awestruck buyers likened the experience to entering Narnia or Disneyland, as others joked that they got lost for 48 hours - while one mother revealed she was so overwhelmed she left with a single aloe vera plant.

I recall my first visit to the fabled, windowless, Swedish store, with my husband, to buy bunk beds for our daughters, which - although we did regularly ask “Where are the tills?” and “When will we reach the exit?”

A few years later I went alone, on an evening, on my way home from work, and was not so comfortable. It was almost empty and I felt I was walking miles, with no end in sight. I could not find a staff member and recall feeling slightly panicky.

It is not often I feel unnerved in shops, but when it does happen it can be frightening. My friend has a genuine phobia - there will be a name for it, but I can’t find one - and once ran out of a department store, abandoning her shopping.

My husband too, hates clothes shops. He becomes twitchy and uncomfortable, and will do anything to avoid them. I accuse him of making it up, but I think his cold sweat and palpitations may be genuine.

Occasionally, when things get desperate, I will drag him into a shop on an evening, when there are few people around and do pressure. He seems to find that tolerable.

Shops don’t make it easy. I was on the verge of tears when I went to look for my daughters in the Regent Street branch of the fashion store Hollister. My husband and I had waited outside for more than half an hour and were fed up.

I went in and it within minutes lost my bearings. It was like going down a coal mine. It was so dark I half expected to see a man with a drill grinding away at the face. It was full of statuesque, airbrushed women and men wandering between displays that, in the half-light, it was impossible to properly see.

I stumbled my way around, looking very conspicuous amongst the supermodels, and failed to find either of my offspring. I was close to screaming at one point, but eventually managed to find my way out. I was reminded of the Father Ted episode when a group of priests become lost in the biggest lingerie department in Ireland and plan a dramatic escape.

I later discovered that it is just as gloomy in another popular teenage haunt, Abercrombie and Fitch, which thankfully have no shops in northern England. You can barely tell what clothes you are picking up. Maybe they don’t want people to see the astronomical price tags.

I am all at sea in mobile phone shops, where the glaring fluorescent light and alien language can bore into your brain. The problem there is that every customer takes up so much time, if there is more than one person waiting you know you’ll be there an hour or so. Even when I get served, I never understand what they are telling me and usually come out none the wiser.

And I really hate vast indoor shopping centres. With no fresh air or natural light, you can lose your mind in those places.

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