I am shopping at Macy's at the Fox Run Mall. Window shopping, actually. I want to start getting ideas for styles,
colors, and sizes for dresses I need in the fall. My eldest child is getting married in
September, and my middle child is getting married in October. Before I visit any salons or specialty shops,
I want a better picture of what it is I am looking for. I figure this is post-holiday but pre-prom
time, so there must be some racks of formal dresses somewhere. Certainly in Macy's, whose flagship store is
in Manhattan, sponsor of the annual Thanksgiving Day parade and NYC fireworks,
carrier of multiple upscale clothing lines; that
Macy's.
I enter Macy's, dragging my ever-vigilant daughter with me
because she's an incredibly good sport and just plain fun to have around. We proceed to walk the interior diamond alley
that circumvents the store. We pass the
cosmetics counter, men's department, children's department, home department,
misses department (plus sizes), and stop to oooh and aaah in the junior
department.
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Before we realize it, we are right back where we
started. There are probably fifty
workers milling around, all sales associates with absolutely nothing to
do. We are essentially the only people
in the store, which I take as a bad sign for a mall on a Saturday. Finally one woman stops gabbing with her
fellow clerks to ask if she can help us, sell us something, spray something on
us, or interest us in full-body makeovers.
"Where are the regular misses clothes? You know, sizes six through
fourteen?" Seriously, at this point
it has been so long since I shopped, I've no flaming idea what size I am
anymore by the new American standards.
Some shops make me feel great because I can easily wear a smaller
size. Some stores sell dresses made for
transvestites with completely boobless tops, and I have to wear a plus size
just to get over my chest (which honestly is pretty sensibly endowed; I'm no
Dolly Parton).
"Oh, you have to go to the other building for
that."
The other building?
She offers no other assistance, turns her back to us, and
stalks away. What the hell does she mean
the other building? We're in a frikkin' mall. This is the building.
I see a sign for restrooms and decide now would be a good
time for a PBE since it's a long ride home.
For those who are not in the know (ie: not yet reached middle age after
bearing several children), PBE means Preventive Bladder Emptying. Theoretically, if I pee now, I won't have to
search in vain for a bathroom when we're ready to leave in twenty minutes. Of course, for those who are not in the know
(ie: not yet reached middle age after bearing several children), twenty minutes
later might warrant another PBE.
There is a sign on the bathroom door: "Wheelchair restroom out of
order." That's fine; I don't have
my wheelchair today. I enter the
porcelain water closet and discover that not only is the wheelchair toilet
broken, but so are two of the three remaining stalls. Apparently, finding the misses clothing isn't
the only thing that's going to require the
other building.
After making our way through the mall, which is the least
linear design I have ever seen (Fox Run is the labyrinth of the mall world), we
spot the other building, which turns
out to be just another store space further into the bowels of the same building
we are in and have been in since we walked through the entrance by Buffalo Wild
Wings. We do a repeat circumnavigation,
passing by clothes that we dub "Grandma clothing," and finally find a
tiny square of what passes for formal dresses.
The "formal dress section" consists of several
roll-away racks, the kind one would put into a cellar to roll wet clothes
around or hang soggy winter jackets on to dry.
All kinds of ugly, leftover, reject dresses are stuffed in to this site,
crumpled and cast aside like sad girls at a school dance.
To be honest, which, as some of you know, I will
occasionally claim to be, there is a section of semi-formal dresses along with
a wall of fur stoles (which are apparently following me this week for some odd
reason), but there's nothing there that's extraordinary or eye-catching,
nothing worthy of the time we've already spent locating them in the first
place.
I think I need to expand my search before I can truly limit
it to styles, colors, and sizes. I need
to find bigger stores with more selection.
I need to try the Mall at Rockingham Park, the Burlington Mall, stores
in Boston, outlet stores. I want to be
the self-sufficient shopper before I go somewhere that I really must answer the
question, "So what are you looking for today?" At this point, I can only give a
deer-in-the-headlights stare and whimper, "I don't know. I just don't know!"
I should've left the mall when I got the first advice: The
other building. Good gravy, the
sales associate was right. One final PBE
and we're on our way.
