Your World Frightens And Confuses Me

I find the mall overwhelming; sometimes it’s just too much. There are so many choices and few are them are wise.

It begins in the parking lot where I try to maneuver my little Escort into a spot beside the behemoth Suburban or Escalade that can’t, or simply won’t limit itself to the allotted space between the lines. Luckily I am losing inches around my waist and can squeeze through the abbreviated space between my driver’s side door and the vertical toll bridge that serves as a passenger door on the land yacht in the adjacent space.

Once inside I am barraged with coffee possibilities. Champagne problems, I know, but what if I choose poorly and end up blowing two days lunch money on one grande cup of bitter sludge with more calories than a Big Mac.

But I came for some clothes, so let’s begin… Where? I am used to the chubby girl shop in the strip mall. You park right outside, there are four or five things to choose from, you use their credit card and you drive though DQ on the way home. Easy as pie; until you need help out of your car because you have too much pie.

I quit pie! And DQ!

So now I have choices.

For just a moment I feel like the convict in Shawshank Redemption who when let out of prison after so many years is so lost in the real world that he longs to go back to the safe constraints of his cell. Or the unfrozen caveman lawyer from Saturday Night Live, who declared upon being thawed, “Your world frightens and confuses me.” Then something shiny catches my eye.

I fly through the stores, trailing bags of clothes, none of which bear large flowery prints. I move with such speed and determination taking piles of pants without elastic in the waist to the dressing room that I draw the attention of security. I walk so fast from store to store that they surely must think I’ve stolen something, but I did not.

I am just trying to burn extra calories so that one day I can spend time in Victoria’s Secret. A lot of time!