Shopping with my wife Liz is like the old TV show I Dream of Jeannie. Remember how Jeannie, with a blink and a nod, could teleport herself anywhere she wanted? That’s Liz. One second she’s looking at coffee makers, I turn my head, and BOING – she’s in Women’s Apparel. When I finally track her down, she’ll have selected a blouse she’s convinced is the buy of a lifetime. Inexplicably, she puts it back on the rack, where days later she’ll return like a spawning salmon, to see if another shopper snatched it up. If it’s gone, she’ll curse herself. If it’s still there, she’ll come back yet again to see if it has gone on sale.
Spending hours as my wife BOINGS around the mall makes me wish for a new store called Razor Blade Emporium. There, frustrated men could just end it all, right there on the spot, with the blade of their choice. When men shop by themselves, however, they seldom get suicidal. That’s because they buy stuff like they make love — quickly:
MAN: I’d like something in gold for my wife…
CLERK: How about this spectacular earring? The pair was broken up by someone with one ear. But if your wife turns her head at an angle, like this, it could work….
MAN: I’ll take it!
When I’m at the mall, I feel like I’m in the 1959 thriller movie “Attack of the 50 ft. Woman.” Malls are infested with giant women. I’m not talking about real women. I’m talking about the women pictured on oversized posters. They stare down with frozen expressions. Sometimes they are flirty, but are usually pouty, or even angry — as if you had just delayed them on their way to the opening of the Cannes Movie Festival by asking them for directions to the Men’s Room.
Paradoxically, giant women on posters are always skinny. Stores like to make their customers look skinny, too, so they trick you with “skinny mirrors,” optically designed to elongate, like at the carnival. No kidding. The problem is, when you get home and your skinny jeans don’t look so skinny, you go back and return them. If you’re at Macy’s, you join a line of competing shoppers who are also returning merchandise. The line is further clogged up by customers trying to figure out which discounts and coupons apply. Can they use an in-store coupon with the one they got in the mail? No, they cannot. That’s because today’s not Tuesday, and Macy’s Super Savings Day doesn’t begin until midnight, when the customer gets an additional 10% off, but only if they apply for a Macy’s Credit Card, and if there’s a full moon, at which time they’ll get 20% off, or if they wish, Macy’s will pay them for taking the stuff off their hands. The check-out line now extends out the exit door, into the parking lot, and around to the cinema. There it merges with a line of confused patrons trying to buy tickets for the hit sequel, Hot Tub Time Machine IV.
My mall ordeals never end when I leave the store. That’s because I always forget where I parked the car. My white Toyota disappears in a sea of white cars. Dusk turns to dark, and the lot empties. I find my vehicle through the process of elimination. Bleary-eyed and exhausted, I wish I had stayed home.
I seem to remember I Dream of Jeannie being on TV-land.