Yesterday's adventure I could have done without. I'm sure most moms would've loved the experience. I would rather have had all my fingernails pulled out, one by one, then go through what I went through yesterday. It was one of the worst experiences of my adult life. And I've had a lot of bad experiences. It began innocently enough...............
Brittney asked me to go dress shopping with her. On a Saturday. In Sioux Falls. For the Winter formal. AAAAAGGGGGG!!!
If you know me at all, you probably know that I hate shopping. I don't like spending money, I don't like people all around, I don't like trying things on and I don't like wasting time when there's so much else to accomplish in life. When I absolutely need something, I go in, find it, purchase it and leave. Simple.
Needless to say, I wasn't looking forward to this shopping trip. But my teenage daughter wanted me to go :-/
She wasn't originally planning on Formal this year because 1) she and Gerald had broken up a few months ago and 2) she's felt like crap since her tonsil surgery. Then she was asked by someone she didn't want to turn down. All I really know is that his name is Justin, he's fairly new to the area, he'll probably be the starting quarterback in the fall and his brother's a coach at the high school. So Brittney said yes and immediately began to panic about finding a dress and shoes for a formal dance in 15 days. Thus began our quest for the dress.
We left home around 9am on Saturday morning and drove to Sioux Falls. I guess in the formal dress hunting rule book it says that you're not allowed to purchase something in your home city. So off we went. I will admit, we had a good conversation during the hour drive by ourselves. One bonus point for the hunt!
Brittney had a few idea of where to look thanks to her friends. We started at Macy's and she found a cute black dress which she proceeded to try on. FYI, there is free wifi at Macy's, in case you're ever
We checked out lots more stores but didn't find exactly the right dress. She's only a size 0-1 so she did find a few that she liked but they didn't have her size. The downfall of having a great body! On a positive note, at least Brittney knows what she wants and she didn't waste time trying on dresses that were maybe's. She would buzz through a rack, disregard everything and move on. My kind of shopping! One more bonus point for the hunt!
So we continued fairly quickly to make our way through her list of stores. The dress hunt doesn't sound so bad, does it? Until we came to THAT STORE! And I don't mean that in a good way. I already knew just from the name and location that I probably wouldn't like it.
When we first entered THAT STORE, the greeter waiting inside the front door kindly requested that we remove our shoes. Excuse me!?! The look I gave her made her wither just a bit but she held her ground and repeated her request. I looked down at her feet pointed out that she was still wearing her shoes. She informed us that they didn't want anything getting on the bottoms of their dresses so if we wanted to look we needed to take off our shoes. If it would have been just me, I would have walked out right then but when I looked over at Brittney, she was already calmly taking off her shoes. Dang it! I sighed and removed my boots. Minus 5 points for the hunt.
Even though THAT STORE was fairly small, it was bustling with activity. There were moms and teens quickly pulling bagged dresses off of racks just like those weird reality tv shows. The moms were almost worst than the kids. Minus another 5 points for the hunt.
Just as Brittney positioned herself in front of one of the racks and began to look through the dresses, a young man came up to us and quickly rattled off, "You're T".
Ok. ??? I had no idea what this meant but I played along. At least he wasn't asking me to remove any more of my clothing.
"You can have up to 6 dresses on the rack at any one time".
Ok. ??? Is 'on the rack' some kind of code or was that supposed to be taken literally?
"We'll call you."
Ok. ??? I'm sure this was all in that darn formal dress hunting rule book that I never read. I knew I'd just have to wing it. I used the tried and true 'smile and nod' and hope he goes away quickly. And with that, he disappeared back into the crowd. Minus another 5 points for unusually unhelpful and confusing letter guy.
As soon as Brittney turned back to look at the dresses again, another employee miraculously appeared beside us, and by beside, I mean practically hovered over us, smothering us with her presence while rapidly pulling dresses from the rack. She asked questions so quickly and barely waited for the answer before thrusting another question at Brittney and dress in her face.
"What school are you from?"
"Brookings."
What style do you like?
I'm not really sure.
Do you like red?
Someti.......
Do you prefer blue?
Not reall....
How about sparkles?
I guess so.......
"Here you go!" she exclaimed as she rushed off with a handful of dresses that she had picked out.
We just stood there, momentarily rendered speechless and not sure what to do next or where those dresses ended up. Minus 10 points for the hunt for rushing off with the dresses for Brittney that she wasn't even sure she wanted.
As we stood there, Brittney explained to me that the reason they asked what school she attended wasn't for polite conversation, as I had hoped. It's because they refuse to sell the same dress to someone attending the same dance as someone else. I'm sure that's all explained in that
I proceeded to do what I do best, which is watch people. We stalked the other patrons to find out what to do next. They all eventually ended up at the back of the store, like animals to a watering hole. Turned out, the first unhelpful employee had taken our letter 'T' and hung it on a rack in the very back of the store. The second overly-helpful employee had taken the dresses she had chosen for Brittney and hung them on the rack next to our letter 'T'. We casually sauntered back there and examined the dresses.
The good news was that Brittney actually liked a few of them. The bad news was the cheapest of the bunch was $310. Yikes!!! Since Brittney was buying the dress with her own money, I strongly cautioned her against looking any further. We hadn't even ventured into the isle that was $800+. As we were discussing the prices, the unhelpful letter guy announced over the intercom to the entire tiny store, "Letter O to dressing room 12. Letter O to dressing room 12." Minus another 5 points for using an unnecessary sound system when I could very clearly hear every conversation throughout the entire forty foot store, most of which involved mothers living vicariously through their children.
One bonus point to the mom who whispered to her daughter, "My wedding dress didn't cost as much as most of these dresses!"
I wanted to respond, "Lady, my first car didn't cost as much as most of these dresses!"
For Brittney's sake only, I kept my mouth firmly shut and hoped to escape from THAT STORE mostly unscathed.
All I could think of was getting out of THAT STORE and away from those crazy people as fast as possible. When it took another 15 minutes for unhelpful letter guy to pull out his microphone and call for letter 'P', even Brittney had had enough. We fought our way to back to the front of the store like fish swimming upstream. I was exhausted by the time we finally made it back to our shoes. Black Friday shopping has nothing on teens and their insane moms looking for prom dresses!!!
As I was putting on my boots, I glanced up at the getaway door and saw three more salespeople standing between me and freedom so I quickly grabbed Brittney's arm and prepared to plow through them. The oldest of the bunch, who was deceivingly grandmotherly, stepped in front of us and slowed me down with, "Did you find something that you liked? We can help you."
When I let her know that we didn't want to wait any longer to try dresses on, she started in with a plea to buy a dress because a certain percentage of the sale would go to the Children's Miracle Network.
Now don't get me wrong, I support good causes but this was getting ridiculous. I had enough. I calmly went to the lady and put my arm around her shoulder as her two other door-guard coworkers looked on. "Ma'am", I said, "We have quite a few children and we've adopted four from foster care. I donate every penny I have into making my children's lives better. We simply don't have the extra time or money to stay here any longer." With that, I gently smiled and walked out the door, leaving every single one of them speechless.
Brittney and I then drove straight back to Macy's, she purchased her stunning dress for $85 and we went out for a lovely lunch together. :-)
Formal Dress hunt = Success!
Oh gosh! We were at THAT STORE too, but a week ago. And it was awful then. I'm sorry you ended up going during their extravaganza!
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