Shopping nightmares

On Monday, we went to a mall. Let me try and explain how monumental this is for me. For years, I have hated shopping, especially for clothes. Part of it has been my size, part of it is simply that I hate shopping. I've made progress in the last decade or two, I don't mind shopping if the following criteria are met:

I have a purpose for being in the store

Unless I specifically need an item of clothing, the shopping does not involve me trying on anything. At all.

The store/mall/whatever isn't crowded.

When I was a little girl, my grandmother used to keep my brother and I for my mom once she went back to work. My grandmother LOVED to shop. She would look at every item on every rack in every female section of every store. And all the shoes, and all the jewelry, and all the perfume, and all the makeup. And I got to go with her. Whoop-idee-doo. I hated it. HATED it. My grandfather would make me go with her because I was the girl and if my brother and I were separated then no one had to listen to us fight.

Off we'd go to the mall, where we'd usually meet my grandmother's sister Wilma. As slow as my grandmother was in looking at things, Grandma + Wilma = excruciating because not only did both of them have to look at everything, they also had to discuss it. And I? I had to stand there and not be impatient but also not be included. So I was somewhere I didn't want to be, doing something I didn't want to do, and not only did I have no say, I was highly encouraged not to say anything. Ever. Because everyone knows that an 8 year old loves to look at old lady clothes. Especially last season's old lady clothes marked down 70%. Especially last season's old lady clothes marked down 70% that they would buy if anything even looked like it would fit me because "it was a good deal". Horrible. Loud prints, polyester pants, high necked, long sleeved granny gowns....You know what's even worse? I couldn't say no. I mean, I said no plenty of times, and this is the conversation that would occur around me. Every. Single. Time.

G: "Tsk. I know when I was a little girl, I would have been thrilled to have new clothes. Any new clothes."

W: "Mmmmhmmm. Can you imagine if someone wanted to buy us something nice and we said we didn't like it? Can you imagine?"

G: "We didn't even have a pot to piss in. We would have taken anything we got that was brand new and been grateful."

W: (nodding vigorously) "Grateful"

G: "Wouldn't have mattered if it fit or not. New. New clothes. We would have been grateful."

W: (still nodding) "Grateful. Thrilled. Ecstatic."

G: "How ungrateful do you have to be to have the nerve to say that you don't LIKE the new clothes that someone was nice enough to buy for you? Pretty damn ungrateful."

W: "Pretty damn ungrateful"

Sigh.

Of course, what did I expect? This from the lady that would circle the parking lot until she found an acceptable open spot. This equalled being no more than six rows away from a door and within the first 10 spots on a row. And when one opened and it wasn't in the row we were currently on? I had to get out of the car and go stand in the spot until she could get there to park. No lie. It's a miracle I'm alive. It must have something to do with my being so ungrateful. It must have radiated off me like a light from a lighthouse.

I used to try and tell my Mom about these little shopping trips, but I left out a lot of the details because I didn't want to get in trouble. Because my grandmother? Was a big fat liar. And who ya gonna believe - the adult or the kid? Besides, my hatred for all things shopping was well known by Mom who wisely avoided it with me if at all possible. Because Mom was also a looker. Not nearly as bad as Grandma, but still...I would rather have walked through fire. Seriously. But Mom didn't mind if I sat in the middle of the circular clothing racks while she looked as long as she knew where I was. With Grandma? Wooooooooo. I was the portable hanging rack and I'd best not wander off.

The only time I can remember throwing a fit with Grandma and Wilma (threw them with Mom but she just ignored it and went about her business) is when they found what I can only describe as a cross between a dress that Shirley Temple would have worn in one of her movies and a cloggers dress. It looked kinda like this only with more lace and bows and ribbons:

It was itchy and tight in all the wrong places and had layers of scratchy crinoline. And me in that dress? Looked like taking a bratwurst and stuffing it in a fluffy, tiny tube of lace and plaid. With bows and ribbons thrown all over the place for good measure. I hated that dress like I've hated nothing before or since and that, my friends, is saying a lot. I stood there and cried and stomped my foot and said that I hated it, I'd never wear it, Please do not buy it, I don't want it.....you get the idea. The more I refused it, the more determined they were to get it and make me wear it. I screamed, I threw myself down on the ground screaming, "NONONONONONOOOOOOO" and I begged - BEGGED - them to let me take it off and not buy it for me. Because I knew and so did they, that if they bought it, I would eventually have to wear it. And while fashion has never been my strong point or or my talent, it didn't take Chanel to know this dress was social suicide. Even if worn as a costume. Or at a Shirley Temple revival. So, they bought it. I refused to carry the bag. I refused to be cooperative about anything else for the rest of the day. By the time we got back to my grandparent's house, my grandmother was fuming mad and I was sobbing like someone had killed my puppy. My Granddad was put in the middle of the hoopla because he wanted to know why I was sobbing and she was so angry. He took one look at the dress and, God Bless that man, told her she'd have to return it or wear it herself. It was that bad. He even got it. And, you know, the one good thing about having to shop with Mom was that if she said "will you wear this' and I said no, she'd always respect my opinion. No matter how much she liked it or how good a deal it was. My grandmother never, ever caught on to this.

But back from the diversionary childhood memory lane nightmare. We were at the mall and there was nothing we needed - specifically - so I could feel the crabby 8 year old welling up in me. I hate that about myself. And then I saw it - Sephora. Why this is my haven, I don't know because I wear make up less than 20 times a year on average, but I could spend hours looking at all the little containers and brushes and colors. I guess I imagine that Sephora can help me present a better me for the 20 or so days I do wear makeup. I did need a new mineral powder brush and some sunscreen with a higher SPF than I currently have, so I bought those two things. The lady at the register asked me if I wanted to enroll in some sort of club. Oh heck yeah! I get free stuff. The more I spend (this could be dangerous), the more free stuff I get. Score! But then today, I get an email and this product is advertised:

Really? We buy this crap and can magically undo bad eating habits and years of no exercise? Really?!?!

Thanks a lot, Sephora. Now I don't want to be inside your doors either.