THINGS OF THE WEEKEND
Cindy Maddera
I paid full price for a pair of pants at Anthropologie because Page, the woman in charge of my dressing room, knew what she was doing. She put those pants in my room, pairing them with two of the shirts I’d picked from the sales rack, while I was still browsing around the store and snuggling a brown velvet jacket. I did not buy that jacket, but I will be waiting and watching for it to hit the sales rack. Then I will have it! The sales clerks at Anthro always do this. They start you a dressing room and then add some items they think you’ll like. I always ignore those items, until this time because the pants fit very very well. It was actually the most enjoyable time in a store that I have experienced since January 29th 2020.
Last weekend, Michael took me to the Container Store to replace our worn out glass food containers. That was the actual bribe he used to keep me from using the medium round one for my lunches. When I pulled it from my lunch bag, there were bits of glass inside it. He gently pried my fingers from the bowl while saying “You can’t use this. We’ll go to the Container Store and replace them this weekend. You’ll like that won’t you? You love that place.” I let him take my favorite lunch container and toss it into recycling because he’s right. The Container Store is my happiest place on earth (Fuck Disney World). Except when we went, it was not a good shopping experience. We had to wait in line to get into the store. Michael walked over to get us juices from a juice place, but he didn’t make it back in time. I went in alone and didn’t browse, mostly because there wasn’t much left to browse. I grabbed the last two boxes of glass food containers from the shelf and stood in line for twenty minutes to check out. When I finally made it out of the store, Michael handed me my juice and asked me how it was. My eyes filled with tears as I told him it was terrible, but my beat/kale juice made me feel a little better.
I’ve never been good with crowds. Michael probably thinks I do the grocery shopping so early on Saturday mornings because I’m just up, but it is because I know that no one is in the store at that time. The longer in the day you wait, the worse it gets. Costco at 2:00 on a Saturday afternoon will turn me into the crankiest anxiety super ball. I am amazed every time that we get out of that place without be taking someone out with my cart. On purpose. Now add people who wear their masks incorrectly and get right up in your personal space to a shopping experience. There have been moments when I have walked away from a store, leaving a full cart of stuff just sitting in an isle because I could not keep myself from randomly yelling at people. So when I walked into a mostly empty Anthropologie on Saturday morning with sales clerks wearing their masks properly and encouraging social distancing, I almost laid down in the middle of the store and made pretend snow angels in happiness.
AND I GAVE THEM ALL OF MY MONEY!
No regrets.