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July 05, 2003
Sharooshed over a Skirt.
Sharooshed: Surprised, Disappointed, Disgusted.
Sharooshed is exactly how I felt yesterday, when, after shopping for 4 hours for a couple of cute skirts to add to my vacation wardrobe, entering every single godforsaken store in woodfield mall, I found nothing that any self-respecting adult human female could wear out of the house. not a thing.
unless I wanted to: show my coochie for free, look like a reject from the Three's Company, or re-create my san francisco hiking disaster and buy shorts again, that is.
it wasn't that bad, actually, trying on silly ill-constructed skirts with my sister all over schaumburg. as I have mentioned, she's a hoot and a holler, and a hottie, but I didn't plan on spending the whole fucking morning looking for clothes.
I was hoping to. . .no, planning on finding something that hangs properly from my hipbones. something washable. something casual. something knee-length. something to showcase the fabulous ass, without being too showy.
nothing denim.
(the rhythm here is something like the description of the warm, woollen sweater in my head. I don't know how that happens.)
4 hours we shopped. (did I mention how long we shopped?) 4 hours of fitting room lines. 4 hours of " I'd love this if it didn't have a teddy bear print " or " if only they had it in a size 2 - the 4 sticks out like a paper bag around your waist " or " who the hell wears neon? "
I was really trying hard not to make a big deal out of this - the last time I shopped for 4 hours, it was for a bridesmaid dress. I'm excited about getting out of the suburbs for a little vacation romantique next weekend, but I just want to get a couple new skirts, it's not like it's the prom or anything.
there will be walking, dining, museums. there will be sitting in a park and talking. there will be architectural tours. there will be more walking and dining. I'm thinking a couple of skirts isn't such a big deal.
if I hadn't lost the weight I gained over the winter, if I hadn't disposed of the big ugly cargo shorts, if I hadn't accidentally spilled red wine on the Hawaiian print skirt and spilled bleach on the hem of the fabulous sarong, I'd be semi-set for vacation wear. but all those things happened to all those other things, and it's a billion degrees next weekend, and I'm feeling fussy.
seriously. with every store we went into, it became a bigger and bigger deal. It was like when we were looking for jeffiner's wedding dress - each minor fault became a line on a checklist of things that we didn't want in a skirt:
- no flowers
- no micro-minis
- no cheap-ass bias-cuts
- no ruffles
we would divide and conquer - she'd take the left side (she's left handed), I take the right side (there is no other side left) and we'd zoom from front to back, pulling any potential candidates in size 2, 4, and 6, and meeting in the middle to show our finds. mischievous minx that she is, jeffiner would inevitably find one skirt that fulfilled more than three list items, the best of the bunch being a flowered mini with mesh ruffle....
if we found any potential candidates for cute skirtishness, we'd cram into a dressing room - and fall down laughing over how the seams bunched lumpishly over the sides, or how the cargo pockets gave a jodhpur-like shape to a skirt that looked straight on the hanger...
4 hours of that can make any gal crazy.
4 hours of shopping for a simple skirt for a simple vacation with a simply lovely companion began to de-simplify into some big deal skirt. for an end-all vacation. with the perfect companion. who may actually notice that what I'm wearing isn't casual enough. or formal enough. or well-constructed enough.
I think they were piping some sort of drug into the mall that turned all of our brains into those of seventh grade girls.
so when, on the way home, dejected (sharooshed, even) and just a little bit sniffly from all the air conditioning we'd just been through (or was it the aforementioned girlishness-drug?), we remembered a Gap Outlet just a few miles up the road from where we were meeting friends for dinner -and we figured it wouldn't hurt to try one more place before giving up.
we screeched into their parking lot, checked our " horrible skirt checklist " and marched up to the door....
to find a ZILLION perfect, straight, butt-emphasizing, shapely-calf-exposing, straight-and-smoothly-seamed, washable, packable, just-showy-enough skirts. for the low low price of 29.95.
all from that unnameable season between ' last season's rejects' and 'this season's overstocks ' .
all just a few miles from where we started shopping, before getting caught in the vortex of the schaumburg mall.
so, I have these perfect skirts. and a week to filter out all that seventh grade girlishness before packing - it's just a vacation with a friend, after all.
Posted by Heather at July 5, 2003 10:56 PM
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Comments
Excellent post, Heather. It's that indefinable quality of rejuvenation that make us very lucky to be women shopping for a skirt.
Posted by: shelley at July 6, 2003 10:38 PM
you know, I never thought of it that way...but you're right. it's a strange and wonderful thing to be able to create, endure, and survive a trivial pursuit, all the while acknowledging the drama of the pursuit as both genuine (emotionally) and unimportant(in the grand scheme of life).
perhaps this is something only a woman (and perhaps, select participants of wigstock) can pull off.
Posted by: heather at July 7, 2003 12:54 PM
Shopping Axiom #1
Guaranteed, if you're going shopping for something specific, it's going to be very, very difficult to find.
Posted by: Glovia at July 8, 2003 10:50 AM
now, we started the saga looking for a cute skirt. as we shopped, the specifics wormed their way in.
although perhaps you're right...perhaps 'cute skirt' was too specific. I should have just gone out looking for a padded vest - we would have happened upon the cache of skirts in less than 45 minutes.
Posted by: heather at July 8, 2003 10:59 AM