Shopping

I went clothes shopping over the weekend. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but I loathe going clothes shopping. But my closet has turned on me and suddenly everything I own is either too small, too annoying, has a stain on it, has a hole in it or some other problem. Not to mention that I needed to make my wardrobe a tad bit more professional to go with my new job duties.

So out to find professional clothes I went. Now, I don’t normally go to the mall. I go to Vancouver Mall only because the closest library is there and I just walk through Penny’s and get my books and leave. Well, occasionally I’ll stop at Paradise Bakery for a cookie, or Taco Time. But for the most part I hate malls. If I do need something I generally go to the store I need and right back out again. I’ve bought Weekenders clothes for the past few years with the occasional foray into Catherine’s (which isn’t so bad since it’s just one store). But now that Weekenders is no more I can't do that.

What a friggin’ pain.

My first mistake, unbeknownst to me, was I chose Columbus Day weekend to go shopping. It was a lovely day, cool and sunny and crisp with fall in the air. I figured everyone would be out at the local pumpkin patch getting their pumpkins and running through the corn mazes. That’s certainly where I wanted to be. But no. They were all at the mall. All at the mall taking my parking places. All at the mall letting their kid wander around unsupervised while they pushed the stroller at a snails pace in front of me. All at the mall strolling 4-people across and not moving for anyone.

My second mistake was choosing to shop at Clackamas Town Center. I grew up with CTC. I remember when we first moved up here my parents and I went through the building before they were done with construction. I spent a lot of time there as a teenager, since that’s what you did in the 80s. I worked in that mall from 1988-1994. The mall and I knew each other quite well back then. Well, no longer! The whole place has changed. I might as well have been on another planet for all the familiarity I felt there. About the only thing the same was Sears, Penny’s and Nordstrom’s being in the same place. They took out the skating rink, removed the big trees from the center, updated the look and feel of the whole place, and basically made it unrecognizable. It was really quite a shock.

My third mistake was in thinking that I would just browse around the mall rather than going in with a plan.

My fourth mistake was in assuming that there would actually be professional looking clothes available in my size everywhere I looked. Why is it so danged hard to find a dress these days? I like dresses better than skirts because they come complete. I don’t have to pair it up with a shirt that matches or whatever. Did I mention I loathe shopping for clothes? It’s mostly because I am really bad at coordinating things. Once you do find the hidden dress section, you have to eliminate all the stupid looking ones that were designed for someone who wears a size 8 and been expanded to fit someone who wears a size 20. This, as you might imagine, is not always a good idea. There are times when this is a disaster. Most of the stores carried disasters in one form or another. After walking the whole mall looking for fat girl clothe stores and gazing in amazement at the things selling as fashion in the skinny girls stores, I finally ran some professional looking clothes to ground at Penny’s. Then I had to find the dressing room, wait for the 70 people in line in front of me, pick my way over all the discarded clothes in the dressing room and try everything on.

To save you from the painful step-by-step drama, suffice it to say that I did manage to find several nice outfits. They were all on sale and, miracle of miracles, the lady that checked me out offered to ring up my 3 outfits as separate purchases so I could use the $10 coupon that was in the paper (that I didn’t even know about) on each one. Wow!

After CTC I went bra shopping. I loathe bra shopping even more than clothing shopping. I got it right this time, though. Instead of wandering aimlessly around a department store trying to find my size (which is invariably on the bottom. Why do they put the big ones on the bottom rack? You’ve got to assume big ta-tas usually mean big girls and we don’t like to have to squat to find our size on the bottom row in the back. Make the skinny girls bend over!), I was smart and went to Just Like a Woman, a store that specializes in bras. I went in, marched up to the counter and said, “I hate my bra. Can someone please fit me properly for one?” So I got to work with Amelia or Amber or someone who was really nice and measured me up and brought me a selection. Cool thing about this is they fasten the hooks for you so you don’t have to stretch out all the muscles in your arms trying to hook them yourself. And they are good at what they do, so they can tell you if there isn’t enough coverage or whatever. I didn’t look at a single bra myself. She went into the back and came in with a selection and let me try on as many as I wanted.

So I survived my shopping trip with a couple of nice outfits and two new very expensive bras. Didn't get to the shoes, but that's okay. Shoes I can do.