The Vaccuum

I wandered through the Gap yesterday, something I hadn't done in months due to lack of time, desire. I contemplated the name of the store and the rest of the gargantuan mall. I finally had a few moments to shop for myself and turned promptly around and walked back to my car.

"Where are all your clothes?" a friend once asked while she toured my house. I made some lame excuse about how the large closet dwarfed the amount I had and that there were more items packed away in dressers, but the reality was there wasn't a whole lot. Still isn't.

I have despised shopping for as long as I can remember and won't recount the reasons just the overriding theme, I find it a completely empty, life-sucking experience.

If you see me on a regular basis and notice the same merry-go-round of outfits I parade, you now know why. I have favorites and I wear them.

I think of the example I set and wonder if I'm depriving my daughters of some mysterious "shopping skill" that I lack but have accepted they surely won't learn it from me.

It's true, I've been known to say, "I love Anthropologie!" But the reality is I enjoy the experience of being in the store (but then so does my father-in-law). The smells, the sounds, the salvaged wood floor, even the woven shopping baskets with brown leather handles that I can't take home are pleasing. Off I went.

I left the store empty-handed and thought of other ways I could spend my time. While I may not have a little black dress or anything suitable for a cocktail party (dreadful!), my life luckily doesn't require either. Flip-flops and shorts were perfect for my son's baseball game. And later the kiddie ER.