Retail Therapy

Great news is, I put off fall clothes shopping for a good 12 months by the convenience of gestating last year.

Bad news is, I've been wearing maternity jeans for the last 9 months or so.... There's just nowhere to store this fashionable fanny-pack of skin my children have so lovingly bestowed upon me.

So I find my quarter-century-or-so self hating the task of shopping. Not in general. I actually really enjoy looking at dishes or coffee tables or nail polish. Those things always fit.

Why am I going to spend hundreds of dollars on things that will be threadbare, faded and probably out of style in a matter of months? (I say "probably" because you think I can keep up with fashion these days? Girl, please. I ain't no Kate)

Not to mention that that money could be used on any of the more important and necessary purchases I need to make (i.e. fixing the furnace, hiring a maid, getting a pint of Blue Moon at the local public house...)

I could try to save a few bucks and go the the thrift store, but that requires effort (and about three less children). People think I have my hands full when I've piled three children into one behemoth Target shopping cart: one asleep and the other two silently clutching a package of Oreos as if it's the ring of power to their Gollum???? You better believe those people will make an about-face as they approach the crazed woman with her feral children making animal sounds from the bowels of the "women's casual" clothing rack at Value World. They wouldn't know whether to call 911, CPS or animal control.

I suppose I shall have to brave the treacherous waters of retail one of these days. Until then, it looks like a lot of cardigans and elastic in my future.

Sorry, have to go, Alfred Dunner just called.....