I have never understood people’s obsession with shopping like, you know, in actual big brick-and-mortar national chain stores. I just don’t get it.
I have shopaholic friends who live and breathe for sales and a free day to spend 10 hours surrounded by the general public in a manic state of consumer consumption.
They actually get up early on a Saturday (or Black Friday or Christmas Eve or the day after Christmas) to be at the mall when it opens and look forward to lunch in the food court. They don’t think twice about risking their bumpers or lives for a parking space or their hearing as they are assaulted by the 106dB looping retail music. It completely mystifies me.
I have to spend an entire morning just psyching myself up for a trip to a big box or warehouse store to pick up pet food, laundry soap, toothpaste or AA batteries. Sometimes the psyching needs an assist…
“Should we start drinking now so we have a nice buzz when get there?” I asked my husband this week an hour or so before we were set to leave for a “shopping avenger” mission.
“Honey, we’re just going to Costco,” he answered.
“And your point is???”
So there’s the psyching up and the three-fingers of liquid courage for the everyday shopping — but a trip to the mall, any mall, requires days of premeditation preparation just to mellow myself out enough that I’m willing (reluctantly) to leave my sharpest pair of knitting needles at home.
Personally, I think everyone’s shopping experience at big-box stores and malls would be much, much, much better if the greeters handed out “adult brownies” instead of “welcome ins” at the door. I’m just sayin’.
The other shoppers are bad enough, but add to them the mostly unconcerned and helpful-as-a-rock “associates,” and that’s what has me wishing I’d brought the knitting needles and had just one more shot.
You know the ones I’m talkin’ about. They’re the ones who get a blank look or huff a sigh when you ask them a question. Or worse, they scan you up and down, decide you’re definitely too old (fat, dumpy, etc.) to be shopping for yourself in their store, then plaster on a practiced and insincere smile asking, “Shopping for your daughter today? Looking for something in particular? Can I help you?” I don’t think so.
Then, of course, there are the racks and racks and racks of truly horrific clothing with either inconvenient or downright dangerous tagging.
I mean, seriously now, have you shopped for sunglasses recently? Ever? The tag — the very long, thick, bulky tag — is always attached to the nose bridge. So, you end up standing there squinting at yourself in the oddly angled and warped display mirror trying to figure out if the glasses will sit straight without the tag and exactly how they will look on you. As good without the tag obstruction as they do with it? It’s always a tough call.
And aren’t those gonzo size security tags on bras that poke, stab and imprint you just awesome?!? As if trying on bras isn’t hell in a dressing room already, you have to contend with a piece of plastic the size of a king-sized Butterfinger bar flopping around just below your arm pit. This then results in these disconcerting thoughts: “Who else’s arm pits have come in contact with the tag? Had they showered? Were they wearing deodorant?”
And will someone please explain to me those little, obscure pieces of clear tape on the inside of bathing suits? They don’t say anything, are never located in the same spot and can often be easily overlooked until you wear the suit for the first time and go to take it off, only to discover it when it grabs hold and — yeeeouch! — rips out hairs that were just fine right where they were growing, thank you very much.
While we’re on the subject of bras, let’s add in underwear and the patterns they both come in to the mix. It’s the floral fabrics that kill me. Come on, you know what I’m talkin’ about here, the undergarments that have hundreds of swarming mutant daisies all battling for a prime and final resting spot across your boobs or butt. I can’t believe the ecologists aren’t all over this. It’s fashion floricide.
My very favorite retail oddity, though, are socks on hangers. Who hangs up their socks, I wanna know? Someone with a teeny tiny custom-built closet and nothing better to do than wash, dry and hang their foot underwear by color and type? White tube sock go on the left, no-show black socks go next, pastel to vivid ankle socks get squeezed in between boot and knee-highs, because having a well-organized sock closet is the sign of an orderly mind or a clinical case of OCD. I’m not sure which.
Speaking of squeezing in, the racks in stores are crammed to overcapacity with fashion infractions so horrifying they could sober a pre-shopping drinker or lifetime alcoholic.
Of course, with the racks stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey, all you can really see is the color and sleeve of the garment. It isn’t until you have engaged in a five-minute wrestling match to disengage the garment from the rack’s stranglehold that you discover the sleeve is only wearable in public part of the top. The rest, you discover, is crawling with grrranimal print – the fashion faux pas that you thought (hoped) died in the ‘90’s, wherein zebra, leopard and Dalmatian prints dominated the (un)fashion(able) world and are now only worn by mob wives along with overly large hoop earrings and acrylic nails that could put a cougar’s claws to shame.
Other mass-produced crimes of fashion available to the tasteless include fashion felonies such as:
• Horizontal stripped sweaters, dresses and blouses in size 2X and up;
• Maternity clothing covered in lace and little pink bears (jeez Louise, the woman is having a baby, she’s not the baby);
• Drainpipe jeans (maximum skinny straight-leg jeans worn so tight that they make the person wearing them look like they have stilts instead of legs and are notoriously ill-fitted so that while the legs are tight, they bag in the butt, making the wearer look as though they still wear diapers);
• Anything and everything the color of fat-lady lavender (only available in spandex- polyester blend (yeah that’s a big mistake);
• Last but not least, the gender-neutral grandpa core dumpy, shapeless cardigans that only come in bland, blech or cat-vomit green. They really are a travesty, and each time I see them, all I can think is that Mr. Rogers must be rolling in his grave.
Yeah, this whole retro thing baffles me. This recycling of bad-to-start-with fashion — overly baggy clothing, leg warmers with short skirts, parachute pants, chunky platform shoes, small sunglasses, blinged-out denim jackets and (heaven help us all) neon-colored velour tracksuits — keep the Fashion Police employed.
Where it gets really exciting (not) is when the retro fashion cycle is recycled and then recycled again, so what’s old is new all over again and again. I call this Fashionheimers, and I’m starting a non-profit foundation to find a cure. Betchya I can get a government grant.
Just about the only way to get me to go shopping anymore is if you are generous when pouring the tequila or you me pay in cold hard cash. Both is better. So you can imagine my excitement when I received this New Year’s week a bottle of triple-distilled Ollitas Reposado and a Valium prescription. Both came on the same day I received an email solicitation to be a “secret shopper,” a job that promised “extra income” as well as funds to make the purchases.
I seriously considered it for about 20 seconds, then I just made myself a margarita, settled in on the sofa with my tablet and clicked my way through shopping heaven.
Reach Kyra Gottesman at kgottesman@chicoer.com