So today I went shopping. I don’t like to shop unless it’s for groceries or electronics, but every once in a while I reach the point where I’m either going to have to go to work in my pajamas or I have to go out in my work clothes. I go out in my work clothes all the time, actually, because those are the only clothes I have most of the time, but sometimes I think my husband would like to go out with someone dressed like an actual woman, or at least like a man under 50. But I had a purpose today: I need a cocktail-ish dress that I can also wear to a wedding (because two dresses in one month? inconcievable!). I also needed a pair of jeans without toothmarks in them.
I did not buy a dress today.
The first thing I bought was a car, except not exactly. Actually what we did was write a check for a deposit on a car that I had thought we would not get for 6-10 months, which is nice because I don’t have a down payment and I probably should, except they told us probably 2-3 months when we got there. But we gave them the check (which they swear they won’t actually cash, and let’s hope not) anyway and we’ll figure something out. I could, for example, become a pirate. Just for a couple of months.
There are many other things we could be spending money on right now, but I’m starting to get really jealous that my husband gets to drive to work without having to keep a constant eye on more gauges than the space shuttle and avoid touching anything except the steering wheel and gear shift because all the fabric inside the car is dry-rotting from age. He also gets to take his car in for an oil change every three months while I have two cars that go in every three months for oil and the replacement of some major and fundamental system. Frankly, I’m tired of having two cars just so I can be sure of having one running at any given time. The reasonable thing to do is buy a reliable late-model used car, but a) gadgets! and b) cars are the only things we can have that are fairly unlikely to be eaten by the dog.
Sadly, two to three months is just long enough that we won’t get the $2000 income credit for buying it. We might get $500, I’ll have to double-check with the IRS.
After that, I went to buy a dress. I went to Ross, because I enjoy trying to find a dress in my size and in some recognizable style in a 40-foot-high pile of clothing thrown on the floor. They also have shoes, all on clearance, which is pretty cool if you can find two in the same size.
Every once in a while, in a shoe aisle, you will see a pair of shoes that will make angels sing hallelujah, with an extra verse about how you don’t have anything to wear them with and buying them is not going to make you the kind of person who wears those kinds of shoes, but hallelujah anyway they guess since they are on clearance and good luck finding them in your size because you’re standing in the 5s. But, seriously, they were pale pearlescent blue Doc Martens boots and they were $17 and I wanted them. I found them in a 5, and then I found them in a 6, and after I went up and down the aisles 3 times I found them in a 9, and you better believe I tried shoving my feet down in there just in case. They would have fit if I didn’t have toes.
I ended up buying some pink and black Converse shoes instead. Not even high-tops, and they didn’ t have laces and now I’m not sure if they’re supposed to, but my husband is a good man and put some on them for me. And I have just accepted the fact that pink is In right now. Whatever, really. They’re mostly black, and they’re comfortable, and we’re going to see Ben Folds tonight and I wanted something I could stand in.
I also bought a cheap acrylic blanket. I hate them, I hate the way they feel and how much static they generate and how the satin edging falls apart after the first wash, but I can no longer bring anything nice into the house because of the puppy, who is now a very large puppy with big boy teeth. He ate my couch. Dork’s couch, actually. There’s not much of it left now and I’m pretty grumpy about that. I just replaced my pillow for the fifth time, as well. And he’s slowly sucking all the polyfill out of the comforter (only out of my side, because he loves to ruin my shit more than B’s) and I’m starting to get a little chilly at night with only a shell covering me.
And I bought a sweater jacket, which really was a legitimate purchase because I’ve been wearing a black Hanes hoodie at work, and I’m pretty sure anything with a Hanes label on it - or, for that matter, a hood - is not technically Business Casual.
I still needed jeans. And I am not too good to buy them at WalMart, because I don’t care. But I was driving past Avenue and figured I’d pop in because I did still need a dress.
You know what, I’m not going to sugar coat this: I bought Jessica Simpson jeans. Like I said, I don’t care. They were $20. I can pick the rhinestones off with a seam ripper, and with luck nobody will ever see that the pocket lining is pink polka-dot. By then I had to pee, so I stopped at the drug store for shoelaces and deodorant and left with shoe laces, lipstick, and night-light bulbs. I still have some deordorant, so I’ll be okay there.
It’s kind of a crappy showing for $26,000, but next year when I can’t afford clothes I’ll be getting 650 miles to the tank, and that’s some kind of comfort, isn’t it?
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Man, I wrote all this and didn’t even tell the story I came here to tell. When I was in the dressing room at Ross, I noticed that the sort of lacy over-elastic on the waistband of my underwear had sprung a string. And I know from experience that you can’t just wrap the string around your finger and pull and break it. What happens instead is that you pull another 14 feet of string off your underwear and cut the end of your finger off. So I just rolled it up and tucked it into the waist and went on about my life.
By the time I got to Avenue and was trying things on, the string had broken out and was trying to kill me. It was wrapped around my body, went up into my hair, came down and back up out of the collar of my shirt, snagged on my glasses, ran down and around my leg. I was starting to look like a Christmas tree, and I couldn’t make it stop. Every time I rolled up more of the string, I found more string hanging out of/on/in my clothes and hair. At one point, I was willing to just take my underwear off, stop trying on clothes, and leave, except when I go clothes shopping I leave my purse in the car and just carry my ID and credit card.
I was afraid to just stuff it in my pants pocket for fear it would leap out and snag on a rack of clothes, toppling over half the store’s merchandise and probably wrapping itself around most of the sales force (one of whom quit while I was there, but I don’t think either I or my underwear were to blame) before slithering out the door and trying to strangle puppies in the Petsmart next door.
Tenacious String would be a great name for a band if it wasn’t practically already taken.