Retail Therapy
I've decided that there really is something to this thing called "retail therapy", at least when the whole shopping experience goes well. For me, most of the time, shopping for clothes is a lesson in frustration. When you live in a small city in the mid-west, finding clothes that fit a short, fat woman is next to impossible. Tops, blouses, sweaters, t-shirts, and the like are found in abundance, skirts, pants, dresses, and such are also pretty easy to find these days....if the woman is 5'8" or taller.
The "petite" section in department stores should have in fine print on the signs "we mean short, skinny gals". I've decided that if it were possible for me to grow taller instead of wider I would have done that a long time ago. At 41, the only thing I'm going to do is shrink....in height, that is.
So, anyway, I took the daughter shopping last weekend. That's right. I was one of the crazy people that ventured out into the hell of retail-ity during the weekend after Thanksgiving. But, I told my daughter that I was not taking her anywhere on Black Friday. No, I was going to spend that morning drinking coffee and eating leftover pumpkin pie for breakfast. Instead, we went to the shopping centers on Saturday afternoon. I figured that all those $20 DVR players and $100 laptops would be gone, as well as whatever the hottest Barbie is this year, and we would at least be safe from that kind of craziness.
It was a wise decision. First, we went to Target. You see, the husband is an employee there now, so in addition to stuff being on sale, we get a 10% employee discount. Now, the daughter is a size 3 junior, so we had an abundance of stuff to choose from. The most difficult thing when shopping with her is helping her realize that I can't buy everything that she likes, and then after that realization sinks in, to get her to make a decision between the funky black boots with the zippers or the suede brown ones with tassels.
As she says "It's just too hard, Mom!". ::::sigh:::: After debating the usefulness of them both for 20 minutes, we left both pair on the shelf.
After spending two hours at Tarjay, we went to Kohls. Oh, I forgot to mention that my goal during the shopping experience was to find a couple of new pairs of jeans for me, me, me. Target had none, none, none. On to Kohls. They had nothing but a sweater that met with the daughter's approval, my quest for jeans was foiled again, but they did have shoes. Oh, did they have shoes. So many shoes that the daughter was in heaven. And her mother had a good time, too. I found two pairs of boots for only $10 each (neither of which had tassels) and E. found a pair of gym shoes that met with her approval. I also found a pair of Nikes for the son at $14.95.
At this point, I was fading fast and needed some energy boosting, so off we went to the food court at the mall. Pizza for the daughter, and Panda Express for me, and then we were off.
In Sears, I found a jacket and some slacks for me.
In Journeys, some more shoes for E.
In Aeropostale, we found a monkey sweatshirt and a t-shirt for the daughter. The t-shirt had this phrase on the front in glittery silver letters, "Boys are like a day off of school. NO CLASS".
:-)
In Marshall Field's we found a pair of Mudd jeans for E. with a hefty price tag of $8.85" I love clearance racks.
In all of these stores, I did not find one pair of jeans for a short, fat woman. I was honestly thinking of singing "To Dream the Impossible Dream" and go pick a fight with some windmills, when E. dragged me into one more store.
Could it be true? Is it possible? Is that a pair of size 20 "short" jeans I see before me? No, it's an entire pile of the buggers, and they were all 30% off! Oh joy!
At the end of the evening, we decided to celebrate our success by going to Barnes and Noble for books and coffee. A fine time was had by all. :-)
The "petite" section in department stores should have in fine print on the signs "we mean short, skinny gals". I've decided that if it were possible for me to grow taller instead of wider I would have done that a long time ago. At 41, the only thing I'm going to do is shrink....in height, that is.
So, anyway, I took the daughter shopping last weekend. That's right. I was one of the crazy people that ventured out into the hell of retail-ity during the weekend after Thanksgiving. But, I told my daughter that I was not taking her anywhere on Black Friday. No, I was going to spend that morning drinking coffee and eating leftover pumpkin pie for breakfast. Instead, we went to the shopping centers on Saturday afternoon. I figured that all those $20 DVR players and $100 laptops would be gone, as well as whatever the hottest Barbie is this year, and we would at least be safe from that kind of craziness.
It was a wise decision. First, we went to Target. You see, the husband is an employee there now, so in addition to stuff being on sale, we get a 10% employee discount. Now, the daughter is a size 3 junior, so we had an abundance of stuff to choose from. The most difficult thing when shopping with her is helping her realize that I can't buy everything that she likes, and then after that realization sinks in, to get her to make a decision between the funky black boots with the zippers or the suede brown ones with tassels.
As she says "It's just too hard, Mom!". ::::sigh:::: After debating the usefulness of them both for 20 minutes, we left both pair on the shelf.
After spending two hours at Tarjay, we went to Kohls. Oh, I forgot to mention that my goal during the shopping experience was to find a couple of new pairs of jeans for me, me, me. Target had none, none, none. On to Kohls. They had nothing but a sweater that met with the daughter's approval, my quest for jeans was foiled again, but they did have shoes. Oh, did they have shoes. So many shoes that the daughter was in heaven. And her mother had a good time, too. I found two pairs of boots for only $10 each (neither of which had tassels) and E. found a pair of gym shoes that met with her approval. I also found a pair of Nikes for the son at $14.95.
At this point, I was fading fast and needed some energy boosting, so off we went to the food court at the mall. Pizza for the daughter, and Panda Express for me, and then we were off.
In Sears, I found a jacket and some slacks for me.
In Journeys, some more shoes for E.
In Aeropostale, we found a monkey sweatshirt and a t-shirt for the daughter. The t-shirt had this phrase on the front in glittery silver letters, "Boys are like a day off of school. NO CLASS".
:-)
In Marshall Field's we found a pair of Mudd jeans for E. with a hefty price tag of $8.85" I love clearance racks.
In all of these stores, I did not find one pair of jeans for a short, fat woman. I was honestly thinking of singing "To Dream the Impossible Dream" and go pick a fight with some windmills, when E. dragged me into one more store.
Could it be true? Is it possible? Is that a pair of size 20 "short" jeans I see before me? No, it's an entire pile of the buggers, and they were all 30% off! Oh joy!
At the end of the evening, we decided to celebrate our success by going to Barnes and Noble for books and coffee. A fine time was had by all. :-)
posted by Laurie at 4:49 PM
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