shopping day

After taking a look at our finances last night and having the usual panic attack, today I did what any red blooded American would do -- I went shopping. Hillary picked me up at 10am and we headed for the mall, ostensibly to return some shoes she'd bought a few weeks ago on sale. After returning the shoes, Hillary proceeded to buy an insane amount (monetarily speaking) of makeup. She is going to look so hot in the poorhouse! I managed to escape from the mall with no purchases (this may be a first), and we headed into Tacoma to have lunch.

At my urgent request, we went to an Indian restaurant. If you know Hillary, you know that she is culinarily challenged, in other words, not inclined toward food adventures. But I prodded and dared and probably made her feel bad enough that she agreed to try Indian food. We also got to hook up with Kirsten, a cool Tacomian (word?) who likes Maple and hopefully Hillary and I too.

I was amazed because Hillary tried a bunch of different things and was a trooper about the whole experience. We even ate from the buffet, which is adventurous for me as well. Maple gorged herself on chickpeas, I on samosas. I forgot to mention that just before lunch, I managed to spend $36 at the fancy gourmet store, on cocoa, coffee (organic of course), curry paste, hot chili oil, and sugar. Five dollar sugar, to be exact.

After lunch, we headed to the Lakewood Mall, which is now less of a mall and more of a shopping center. They actually converted the mall into a strip mall, in one of the more backward events of this century. It was an experience, to say the least.

First, we entered Burlington Coat Factory, which I later learned has "all of the ghetto, none of the fabulous." A sugar-coated muffin tried to check my bag at the door, and I gave her my death stare. Actually, it was technically Maple's bag -- a diaper bag -- filled with diapers and baby toys, and she succeeded in wresting it from me, in exchange for a blue clothespin bearing the number 5. We started walking away and she was just standing there holding the bag, not putting it in a locker or behind a counter or anything. The whole operation seemed a little odd, especially since there were ghetto unfabulous ladies everywhere with much larger bags. I stared at the muffin and didn't really move until Hillary finally offered to uncheck the bag and take it to the car. I accepted graciously and breathed a sigh of relief.

We then went purse shopping. It was so ghetto, so 80s, I can't even describe the awful merchandise we saw there. But I pretended to like almost all the ugliest bags, which was quite entertaining for Hillary, as she had no idea whether I was serious or not. Then I announced that I had to pee, which made Hillary laugh as she regaled me with the story of the doorbell. Apparently she had peed at Burlington Coat Factory years before and had to ring a doorbell in order to enter the restroom. Now it was my turn to stare at her in disbelief. Sho'nuff, I had to be buzzed into the bathroom. Did they think I was going to steal a $12 purse that had been in storage since 1983? I can't even imagine what controlling access to the restroom does for the place. And who is watching? Scary.

After BCF (we're on a first-name basis now), we strolled across the vast parking lot to Gottschalks, a Mervyn's-like department store with a much more geriatric -- and acceptable -- purse selection. We saw a few decent candidates before I had to go running off to the bathroom again. No doorbell this time, which was fortunate because I don't think I would have made it. Anyway as I ran up the escalator and towards the pisser, I saw a glorious array of clearance purses whiz (haha) by. After my doorbell-less pee, I fetched Hillary and Maple and we busted a gut over the clearance purse selection.

It was amazing. There were purses with Life Magazine images of dogs screenprinted on them, complete with rhinestone collars. Note that the rhinestones were on the purse, not in the picture. Maple liked these especially and requested to hold one near to her heart. There were Bahamian beach blanket bags, "Mrs. Affleck" bags, and again, 80s bags of all shapes and sizes (but mostly large hobo bags in acid washed denim). And then we turned a corner and encountered... THE WALL OF SHIMMER. It was an entire wall of lame (that's "lamay" not "lame", although both apply) purses in a dizzying array of colors. White, silver, gold, pink-gold, lavander-gold, etc., and when taken in all together, it was too much for my senses. I am actually transcribing this from a tape I made from the hospital after I was treated for temporary blindness and insanity. The blindness was from the bags, the insanity from the prices.

Needless to say, we made it home. I managed not to purchase any purses, not even the "S is for SEXY" one in green and black pleather. Maple and I both got hysterical from exhaustion, and took a long, late afternoon nap. I haven't heard from Hillary but hopefully she survived the shopping and the Indian food.

I had hoped to write about how wonderful the wedding was, and how great it was to have a week's vacation, and how DIFFERENT and SPECIAL it is to be married, but I'm afraid I shot my wad with the shopping story. I'll write more tomorrow.

But one more thing before I go, it is really cool to be married, especially to someone I love and respect. I was just being funny before with the DIFFERENT and SPECIAL stuff.