Is It So Weird to Do a Little Research?

My students found it odd that I was reading Over-Dressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion and when I told them that I was reading it because I was about to go on my first solo clothes shopping trip ever (not that I've never bought clothing before -- but usually just an individual item, and most of my clothes are either gifts or hand-me-downs from my brother, father, and even a colleague's boyfriend, who lost weight and gave me all his fat pants) because all of my clothes, shoes, and belts wore out at once a few weeks ago and so I was in serious need of everything . . . and one of those 30% off Kohls coupons came in the mail, so I went for it -- and it was a disaster, of course; I pulled over a rack of women's nightgowns, nearly walked into the women's dressing room, bought pants that were too long, lost my cart innumerable times, and had trouble finding the items I needed -- and then they wouldn't let me use my wife's charge card (they probably figured: there's no way this idiot is married) and so I had to get my own card in order to use the coupon, and I somehow lost my driver's license in this transaction (though it turned up a week later) and while I learned a lot about the big picture of globalized fashion from Elizabeth Cline's book, it didn't help me at all with actual shopping, and my students thought the only thing weirder than me reading a book about fashion was me reading a book to prepare to go shopping at Kohls . . . but what's wrong with doing a little research?