Shopping

perdita like water
Originally uploaded by mygothlaundry

I have been resorting to retail therapy more than is my usual wont (wont! wont! What a lovely word, that can be used in so many ways with just the addition of a handy apostrophe.) lately. This is highly stupid, like, 10 out of 10 on the stupid scale since, as we know, my income is essentially nil. That is, the state of North Carolina, in its infinite wisdom, is handing me approximately 3/5 of my previous pathetic salary as long as I log on to their website every week to apologize for not having a job. Also, I must keep a job hunting log of failure, desperation and rejection, which is big time fun, let me tell you. Still, I feel it is my duty to spend this NC money, thus stimulating the economy and also netting me stuff like this pair of not all that hideous and highly comfortable pants for $6.24 from the clearance racks at Target today. Score!

Well. In a strange quirk of personality, fluorescent lights and the smell of fabric softener have the power to cheer me up, and being unemployed gets old. I have time if not money and so I have been doing some shopping. Today, I had things I had to get for Annie anyway, so that was the ostensible reason I was browsing the clearance racks at Target after a visit to Michael's crafts, where I nobly held back from the extremely groovy plastic chip bowl and took away some of those all graphite drawing pencils to which I am so addicted. I need them to draw with and then the dogs eat them, so a constant supply is a necessity. Besides, Michaels is always like a small trip to the nether reaches of the solar system in itself. There are entire Chinese provinces devoted to making peculiar things, like terrifying plaster bobblehead dolls, for Michaels.

Michaels and Target are conveniently located practically next door, so when I left the land of freaky crafts, I went to Target, where I found the aforementioned pants. Then, since I was going to do the dressing room thing anyway, I went ahead and plopped two heinous dresses and a pair of, gods help me, purple cargo shorts into the cart.

The clearance racks at Target are as interesting as clearance racks anywhere. When I'm shopping, whether it's accompanied by the Goodwill screech of hanger against metal rack or the Target / Ross / TJ Maxx searching for the size and price tage, my mind inevitably goes into a sort of stream of consciousness fugue state that swings happily from "What the hell is this dress? It looks like a post ironic take on some kind of construction worker Village People thing? Who would wear this?" to "Oooh, lady with scary hair. Do not look. Scary hair! Scary! Does she know it's scary? Did she pay somebody to do that to her hair?" to "Is that a . . . gingham romper? Oh god, it's a gingham romper. Wouldn't it be kinder to equip all gingham rompers with body heat activated laser beams so that anyone over the age of eight who puts one on is immediately and painlessly dispatched?" The answer to that question, by the way, is yes. Yes, indeed.

In the dressing room, I tried on the post ironic denim dress and it was fabulous, if, that is, you are living in, I don't know, the year 2123 and have a very specific task to accomplish, like, perhaps, mining something radioactive out of one of the smaller Jovian moons. For all other occasions, I felt, it would be unsuitable. Plus it was tight across the hips, a sad factor of my recent existence. Then I tried on a dress that, as far as I could tell, was created when a classic Burberry trench coat had a midlife crisis, felt that it had missed out on disco and thus, in a feat of transmogrification, became a mini dress! A minidress that is, alas, equally inappropriate for the dance floor or the spy novel. Still, points for trying, raincoat! Then I tried on the purple cargo shorts. Yeah, okay, the result of that was pretty much what can be imagined and we will not dwell upon it.

Greatly cheered up - I saved probably $27! I could therefore go and spend that money on nail polish and discount diet drinks! - I left the dressing room and spent the rest of my Target visit ducking around corners to avoid Scary Hair Lady, who was everywhere. Perhaps there were two, identical twins, although that' s the stuff of B rated horror movies everywhere. Ah shopping. I have done my part for the economy, America.