By the lovely Ms. Karen
Okay, these
are my stats. I’m forty years old. Divorced. Stay-at-home mom. Two
boys, 12 & 2. My boys are my life, and my devotion to providing
them with everything they need started the minute they were born. Kids
are expensive these days and because of that my discretionary income
is, well, pretty pathetic.
Therefore, my own needs
are simple. They have to be. I don’t wear the latest fashions, I don’t
have any bling, and I don’t drive a cool car (how superficial I was
when those things actually mattered to me, I keep reminding myself).
But on one particular day when I was feeling a little down, I needed a
little boost and decided to go to the mall and actually splurge on some
new clothes for myself.
I took my hundred dollars … (okay, stop laughing!… I actually believed
I could get 3 or 4 items with this money. Shows how long its been since
I’ve been clothes shopping) Anyway, I took my money and walked into
‘the monster of a mall’.
I felt downright prehistoric walking from store to store looking for
something that would a.) fit me… b.) cover my private parts… and c.)
not make me the object of people staring at me and commenting under
their breath “Who does she think she’s kidding, she’s too old to wear
THAT!”.
I finally
found a few items that I could live with. Ugh! Here it comes. The
dressing room. That little house of horrors that ALL women dread. Well,
anyone over thirty, that is. It had been so long since my last clothes
shopping trip, that I had forgotten how traumatic that five little
minutes in a dressing room can be for a woman already struggling with
self-esteem issues.
Now, just for the record, I
highly doubt any woman looks great in her undies under fluorescent
lights, although I am the only person I have ‘personally’ seen under
these conditions. Why don’t these retailers know this? If you want me
to buy your clothes, help a girl out a little bit by putting some soft,
diffused lighting in there. Or candles, maybe. All women look good in
candlelight. Damn that Thomas Edison and that whole ‘lightbulb’ thing!
And why not use some carnival mirrors? You know, the ones that they
manipulate to make you look tall and thin like a supermodel? Has no
retail marketing executive ever thought of this?
I think I speak for most of the female population when I state that we
don’t care if you trick us into believing we look better in your
clothes than we do. Us women are the masters of ‘trickery’ ourselves.
We just want to look good. We want to appear to be the goddesses that
we once were. But all the hair dye, fake fingernails, make-up, botox,
fake tans go out the window the minute we step into your little cubicle
from hell.
How about this? Exclusive dressing rooms for women ‘over forty’. Maybe
a little wine and cheese in each dressing room. I always look better
after a glass or two of wine (so do the men I date, but that’s a WHOLE
other issue…) Maybe some young, buff ‘escort’ to help bring our “I’ll
never get my ass into these jeans” pants into the dressing room. Divert
us. That’s what we NEED!
God bless these young, skinny-assed girls who don’t know or care about
‘lighting’ yet. Youth is definitely wasted on the young. Whoever said
that was a genius!
So, did I buy any clothes that day? Yes. I bought a pair of pants and a
shirt. And the next day I went on a diet. It’s been a week, and so far
I’ve lost a couple of pounds. A little ‘dressing room reality’ will do
that to a girl. I’ll never be Giselle, Claudia or Kate Moss. But I’m
trying.
Hey, how about Fabio on a TV monitor in the dressing room telling me
how fabulous I look?…… Ladies, the ideas keep coming…..
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