Happy Happy Shopping Day

If you can jump in the car and be at a nice mall in less than half an hour, then this story will make no sense to you. However, if you are like us and the two hottest clothes store in your area are Wal-Mart and Goodwill, you can probably feel my pain here.

Don't get me wrong, I love Wal-Mart and FarmerGeek has developed an obsession for Goodwill "finds". But occasionally, I feel the need to indulge in retail therapy. Since our tax return came in, we were able to do our part to stimulate the economy. We decided not to go into our nearest big city, we would drive an extra half hour to go to the bigger city that actually has a Barnes and Noble, JoAnn's Super Store, Berean Christian Store, Bed Bath and Beyond, Body Shop, and Michael's. (No half of these stores are not in our closest big city and NONE of them are in our town. Our anchor stores at the mall nearest us are Elder-Beerman, J.C. Penney's and a scrapbooking store!)

The day was dubbed "Happy Happy Shopping Day" and I had looked forward to it for weeks.

I woke up in the morning with a mild migraine. Now "mild" with "migraine" is an oxymoron. A mild migraine for me means that I have blinding, agonizing pain shooting through my brain, am completely unable to tolerate light and sound, but I'm not nauseous. I knew the right cocktail of OTC meds and it subsided. Then I just felt wrung out and used up. But I resolved I would go.

The choring was done, the house ready, and I only felt like ass instead of honey bunches of ass, so I went to get ready. The bathroom door hadn't been closed even 5 minutes when I heard the noise. BBBRRRRRRRRRRRPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPTTTTTTTTTTTT squirt. Now I knew FarmerGeek was sleeping upstairs, so it wasn't him. (Is it bad that I automatically thought it was him? Or is it conditioning?) Then before I could figure it out, the stench- oh the stench!- wafted out to me. GAG! Sure enough, the older dog caught what the puppy had and it was everywhere. Luckily we hadn't put the rug shampooer away yet.

Well all was said and done, we didn't get out of the house until nearly 2:30- only 2 and a half hours late! We plugged in Carmen the Garmin and set out for the big city. One of the places we really wanted to go was Barnes and Noble. Sure enough we found one in the Garmin, and as we followed directions we realized it was indeed taking us to a Barnes and Noble- only the Barnes and Noble was the local college's bookstore!!!! Sigh. So we put in Lane Bryant. I had coupons and a merchandise credit! Oh joy! Oh bliss! Oh wait- there's a mall over there... I had to stop. I just had to. (Even though "in point one miles, arrive at Lane Bryant, on right".) So we pulled into the mall parking lot (recalculating) and I took a deep breath.

Ah the smell of gratuitous commerce.

There we found a Body Shop, and spent money. (YAY!) We spent enough to get the free shower gel. Then we decided to stroll around and look for the Lane Bryant (which we found out was in the mall). Unfortunately, it was kids' and families' day at the mall. I think there's a video game in this- dodging strollers while trying to get to something. Anyways, we find the Lane Bryant. I don't know what happened, but suddenly their clothes don't fit right. The shoulders are too big, the waists are too high, and my absolute pet peeve is the horrible cut of every skirt they make. They're all the same mermaid cut no matter how long it is. Ugh. Finally I bought a ridiculously expensive shirt and some Cacique stuff. The lady said they were "throwing in a Figure magazine today". I'm thinking BONUS- free stuff total, one shower gel and a magazine. Yesterday I looked at the receipt and I got charged for it. Note she never said FREE magazine. We strolled around some more, and didn't find anything else at the mall. So we left and went to find a Borders. We had to get the rest of the Twilight series. So we dropped the $35 for the last two books. (Ugh!) AND there was a Michael's across the street!!!! I didn't even know that there was one, I couldn't find it! Only, I couldn't find anything I wanted there. So we went to JoAnn's. Which was good enough. I FINALLY found the yarn I wanted, in the color I wanted. So it started to look up. As we were leaving, I spotted-was it- it was! A BARNES AND NOBLE!!!!!! Oh joy, oh bliss! We walked through the doors and I saw the escalators. I'm afraid to say, I drooled a little bit. Although I was in shock over the prices, it was still nirvana.

On the way home we decided to stop for dinner at a major chain that boasted southwestern grille and has a phallic symbol for a mascot. (You know who it is...) It was disgusting. The soda/pop was off, my plate got put to close to the heat lamp and my mashed potatoes were actually burned. I was eating the chicken and it had that gross hard mystery piece in it. Gag. Not to mention that the service sucked. It pretty much capped off my day. By the time we got home the dog had been sick again. He managed to get sick on the power strip that the router and modem were plugged into so no internet until we got it cleaned up.

I guess I just shouldn't spend money on myself.