shopping in hell

and living in squalor
16 August 1999

This weekend Eric and I decided that no matter what happened we were going to spend part of the weekend shopping.

Which is exactly what we did.

At first we went to the futon store and bought a new cover.  Our living room futon looks like a battlefield.  The Battle of Kitty Meds left nasty stains all over the place.  The futon used to be white, about a year ago.  Now it was yellow with little nitpicks of fabric from people sitting on it, and food stains and baby food stains and tuna stains and medicine stains and eye goo stains and tear stains and it was too nasty to sit on another day.

We love our new cover.  It's blue and pretty.

Afterwards we went to Old Navy.  It's like some sort of system with me and Eric.  We rarely talk once we get into the Old Navy.  I'll follow him into the right hand side of the store for a few minutes and check out some guy apparel and then I'll walk over to the back (clearance) section.  Then I go back to the women's side.  I find a few things, then I find Eric and have him hold the stuff I don't need to try on while I go and try on the other things.

Yesterday while I was in the dressing room I overheard the following conversation:

And he proceeded to tell her the entire end of the film!  He told her frame by frame the entire backstory and end to the film.

Why would you want someone to tell you the whole film before you go and see it?  Why?  Why?  Oh, it made me so angry I had to buy some new pants and a tank top.  I couldn't take it.

Anyway, Eric and I bought our clothes and then headed over to the shoe store to get Eric some new basketball shoes.  This store was packed and there were people running all over the place.  Eric had found some shoes but since it was chained to the wall he needed someone to bring over a pair for him to try on.  I found a guy in a shoe store shirt.

"Can you help me?" I asked him.

The guy froze.  His eyes got real wide and his skin paled.  "I'm... not...a... shoe...guy..." he whispered.

"Oh.  Who is?"

He pointed a shaking finger to the other guy next to him.  "He is."

"Okay.  Well, could you help me out when you're done?"

"Yeah."

I looked at the first guy again.  "Sorry to scare you."

Eric had to walk to the other side of the store to try on the shoes.  Then he had to go to another side of the store to try and find a pair of All-Stars in his size.  Then he had to go back to the other side of the store to get someone to get him the shoes in his size.  

I was walking back and forth following him for a little while, and then eventually I just had to stop.  I stood in the middle of the store as Eric walked by and went, "I just have to check over here for something," and I thought to myself, "Oh, my God.  This is taking forever.  How much longer do I have to stand here like a jag off holding a bag of socks."

And then I thought to myself:  this is what Eric thinks whenever I take him shopping.

I felt like I had absolutely no room to complain.  I looked around and saw that there were several other women all standing and looking bored and tired just like I was.  One of them saw me and gave a weak smile.  We are all in hell, honey, she seemed to be saying.

I would like to make a public apology to every man I ever forced to watch me shop.  I'm sorry I dragged you along and made you sit in the waiting areas of every Victoria's Secret, Gap and department store in each and every mall.  I have learned my lesson.  Next time you ask if you can go and play video games while I try things on I will not whimper and give you the "You don't love me" look.  Instead I will hand you a couple of dollars and tell you to have fun.  It was wrong of me to think that you would be even slightly interested in telling me if the blue or the green pants make me look taller.  I now know that you could not care any less if I bought the pumps or the heels.  There is no difference in a cardigan or a sweater.  They all look like fuzzy shirts when you put them on.  I'm sorry I forced you to watch me try on six different pairs of jeans only to throw all of them aside and not buy any of them and force you to go to another store to watch me do it again.

It was wrong of me.

There.  I've done it.  Let it never be said that I can't admit when I'm wrong.
 
 

Eric and I both work on the north side of town.  We live on the south side.  We've discussed before whether or not to move to the other side of town, since we both have over half-hour commutes twice a day.  I've stayed on the south side because our friends live on this side.  Eric stays because he thinks the north side is too "suburban."

I giggle at this because I've heard him talk about how much he wants to live in strife and squalor.  He used to talk about moving to New York and living in a little squatty apartment with no food and roaches.  As if the amount of roaches in your apartment was equal to the level of guts you had in going out there and "doing it."  I teased him about that.  "Is it the convenience of living close to work that bothers you or the fact that we won't have to drive fifteen minutes to have good food?"

But I can tell he's starting to break.  Thursday night when I came home Eric said, "Baby.  You have to start throwing away the cat food that Lillith won't eat.  We're getting roaches."

"At least we're real actors now."

He didn't think that was very funny.  He doesn't have much of a sense of humor when it comes to us living in squalor.

Okay, I can't keep the secret any longer:  I got a new job.  I start in a couple of weeks.  That's why things at pamie.com could be a little crazy when I get a new schedule and try and figure out exactly when I'm going to be doing updates.  Bear with me, okay?  I got a web job.  How cool is that?