Who thought haggling was a good idea? I mean, I understand it started thousands of years ago when communities traded goods and supplies to live. Ancient me probably loved getting a bargain on potatoes at some damp English market to take home to my sick family. But it’s winter 2023 – why should I waste some poor seller’s time arguing about the price of potatoes?

Obviously there are plenty of people around the world who still shop at markets, and haggling is probably part of their day-to-day life. But me? I can’t do it. The idea of arguing about money with a total stranger who is just trying to make a living makes me uncomfortable down to my toes. You’re charging $30 for some essential oils at a country market? I’d rather pay $10, but guess what, you’re getting $30. A vintage t-shirt that’s been marked up because we’re in a cool part of town and the seller is beautiful and young and I am old and unwise? Sure, you can have $50 for it. I know I’m a pushover. You could spit in my coffee too, if you wanted – just take my money and let me go.

On holiday in Vietnam, I paid the equivalent of nearly 100 Australian dollars for an absolutely clearly fake, branded carry-on suitcase because the experience of trying to haggle it down to the price it was actually worth gave me a panic attack and I had to leave the market to get a drink of water while my boyfriend walked off in disbelief.

It can’t just be my white guilt, though. I have attended markets closer to home where the haggling experience is just as stressful – on both sides! Once, I held a stall of my own, selling clothing for already very cheap prices. Before the market opened – before the sun had even come out – ladies with bumbags and torches were rifling through my wares, asking me to give them three items for the price of one. “Just take them!” I shrieked, giving them away for free just to get the interaction over with. It’s not like I’m wealthy and can be this carefree about money either – I once pawned DVDs for 10c apiece at Cash Converters because that’s what the guy told me they were worth and I just needed to make rent.

And it’s not just markets! It wasn’t until I met my husband that I realised so many retailers will price-match if you show them a competitor’s offer. My husband is a price-matching fiend – he will not make a purchase unless he’s compared prices across the country to find the lowest, just like our working-class fathers before us. We’ll be walking up to the counter to buy a bloody hammer at Bunnings and he’ll whip out a catalogue to show the cashier just in time for me to scuttle off behind a shelf in shame. It’s literally a store policy they encourage and yet I’m wandering the aisles grinding my teeth feeling like Oliver begging for more mush in the form of lowest prices, guaranteed. In this dreaded fantasy, the hagglee is moments away from yelling “Lower?! You want LOWER?” and I’m swiftly escorted from the store and banned for life.

I don’t even want to talk about the terrifying hellscape that is online marketplaces. Imagine if my soggy colonial ancestors were selling their root vegetables in a place where 100 people could immediately start haggling with them at the same time, all while asking that delivery get thrown in for free. Maybe if we’d started there, this haggling business could have been over with decades ago.

This rad pennant comes straight from the pages of issue 114. To get your mitts on a copy, swing past the frankie shop, subscribe or visit one of our lovely stockists.