This is a terrible time to be a shopaholic. The people that make the rules have no idea that for some of us, TJ Maxx, Marshalls and Home Goods are a necessity. The ridiculous governor of Florida has deemed the WWF (that would be fake Wrestling…) as a necessity, but not hair and nail salons: what an idiot! This morning I spent hours making price tags I could pin on to my clothes just so I could go into my closet.
There were even some I put Sale tags on. but to tell you the truth, it’s just not as much fun as actually meandering through a store. Last night we lit yahrzeit candles (memorial candles) and I told my mother that if she wasn’t dead, she would never survive the closure of Bloomies. Once I told her that she needed to get some exercise and she looked at me like I was nuts. “‘For your information,” she said, “I exercise every single day. In the morning I get up and get dressed, put on my make-up, and go to the Mall to look for sales. I buy a few things that I like, and I don’t try them on. The next day I get up, get dressed, put on my make-up and Return them. I have my hair and nails done once a week so I look nice in public, but I never just relax. I walk miles when there’s a good sale at the designer discount stores or a department store with a sale on dishes, or whatever little something that looks nice.”
That was the end of the exercise conversation. did I mention that she would not always return the same items she purchased the day before. Remember when department stores decided that you couldn’t just return something that was purchased 30 days before or without a receipt. That was clearly because of my mother. I must say that the good news was that whenever there was an occasion where a gift was appropriate, me and all my cousins would shop in my mother’s attic. Her upstairs looked like a sale at the Fortunoff warehouse. There was always something nice we could take to the event.
All my aunts were the same. When I married David, we said not to fuss. My father was not well and the wedding was in my parents’ living room. We wanted it to be small, intimate. I told them not to invite anyone. They said OK. The next thing I knew there were 50 people coming. But here’s the point, they said it would be very informal. There would be paper table cloths on the 7 tables they set up in the living and dining rooms, (all the furniture in the house was put on a truck in the driveway). My Aunt Sophie and Aunt Peppy went to Kmart, where they would never shop, to buy the paper goods. They came back to the house and started cutting the tablecloths to fit the tables. My Aunts decided the paper cloths looked cheap. (Of course they did, they were cheap.) So they packed them back up, cuttings and all, and returned them. Yes, they returned the cut up cloths, got their money back and used the beautiful linen tablecloths they already owned.
And so I say, they would never have survived the closures or stay at home orders. They always had too much shopping to do. What fun we had. I really miss all of them. We’re just sayin’… Iris
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