Mall Rat

I spent yesterday morning at the mall hunting for something to wear for Valentine’s Day.

I hate shopping.

My hubby has learned the hard way that I need notice to find something to wear. My closet is full of stuff that is appropriate for staying-at-home with children who are covered in "nasty," or for wearing to the barn to get, well, in general, nasty. But, if we just depend on my closet to upchuck something fabulous, at a moment’s notice, it will not end well.
It will turn out... nasty.

Bless his heart, he really has learned this the hard way. I made the STUPID mistake (I’ve made it several times, actually) of asking a man who wears white socks with his black sandals and VERY baggy blue shorts- I’m not kidding, Geek jokes aside, he really does this- what he thought of my thrown-together-straight out-of-the-nasty-closet-Valentine’s-outfit, one year. I gotta tell ya that hearing your spouse spout,

“That’s a lotta red,” 

is not conducive to a romantic night on the town. Hahahahaha

So, this year, he’s already told me,

“I got a sitter and we’re going to dinner 

which means that you have two weeks 

to find something to wear for Valentine’s Day. 

Don’t ask me for details, it’s a surprise. 

‘Business Causal,’ is all I’m telling you.”  

Then, he smiled.

You’ve got to love a man who has learned to dodge the land mine.

Which is why I was at the DREADED mall at 10:30am on a Wednesday. It was not going well. I HATE shopping, have I mentioned this already?  Where do I fit?  I don’t like the “old lady” clothes but the other options ain’t so great either - Juniors,  plunging down to there and cut up to here. That ain’t clothing, it’s a scarf that somebody forgot to put with their coat.

There is a store that I loved as an early twenty-something - even got a job there in college - but I’ve been walking past it for years because 

I’m just too old to shop there anymore.

Then, it happened. I don’t know if the caffeine from my coffee kicked in or if the “Mall-Drugs” (you know it’s true) that I’d been inhaling since I’d set foot in the door of the mall finally reached critical mass or if my Big Girl Panties bunched up into a wad large enough to cause me to remember that I actually had them on but suddenly I thought to myself,
      
       'Nearly 40' be damned, I can too wear that stuff if I like it!

and for the first time in years and years I made a bee-line for my old favorite.  And you know what? I found some stuff that I liked.

I might even go back today and try it on. ;p