A Recessionary Tale
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Call it sentiment. Fortunoff’s, that bastion of all things boring and horrible during my youth, was now flashing incessant “Going Out Of Business” signs, banners and other related hoopla every time I passed the mall. Of course the one I passed is not the same one my mother dragged me to every time we needed a wedding gift, bat mitzvah bracelet, watch battery, or salad bowl, but that is a minor detail in my already mangled sentiment. “10% off ENTIRE STORE” sounded silly enough to me, what with my little envelope of Bed Bath and Beyond’s 20% off coupons tucked into my glove compartment, should I ever need a pizza cutter on a moment’s notice. “30% OFF ENTIRE STORE, 40% OFF, 50% OFF…. Well at exactly 70% off, I became a tad nostalgic for my old foe. Curious, I browsed. Somehow the fractions became easy; I became an instant 70% off savant (quickly figuring that 30% on was the trick) – if only they taught percentages in Junior High as a shoe sale, I could’ve been a mathlete. Not having a true quest also helped one not notice the meager pickings left were the shopworn leftovers. I quickly figured, smart girl that I am, that the best deals would be on the highest ticket items – what’s the glory in scoring a $28 bamboo cutting board for $8.40 ($2.80 x 3 – see it’s really 30% on, get it?) when you can really kill in a $900 gold cuff bracelet suddenly re-price ranged for a mere $270. That’s a whole other affordability bracket. That’s chump change. I mean, I could spend $270 at ShopRite if I really tried. I never have, but I could.
Man, those gold necklaces were actually very pretty. In fact, there were a couple of chunky open-linked dangling chains that reminded me of those “investment” pieces that I always promised myself after I got my divorce, after I got an article published. And well, hadn’t those two milestones come and gone, boldly yet goldlessly? This is how shopping therapy works - you are deserving, you are justified (and repeat).
When I saw the eight-strand knot, with all eight strands a thick gorgeous lemony hue, it reminded me immediately of a necklace I once coveted – I was never good at that “not coveting things”, but I am very good with the other nine commandments (very!) so I don’t feel too guilty about coveting. I can honestly say that I never did covet my neighbors’ husbands (an 80 year old architect on one side, lesbian couple on the other), so what the hell could be so heinous about some old-fashioned jewelry coveting? The necklace I remembered was being worn by a skinny society woman in Atlanta, Georgia. I remember feeling so superior, so sophisticated, that I coveted only the necklace, and not her gumball-sized diamond studs. I mean, really! Those were obscene. I’ll take the statement necklace and nothing more, Miss Atlanta! AND, have I mentioned that the necklace I was holding right then was actually bigger and more buttery than Miss Gumball’s. Take that Atlanta! In fact, take that entire South! In that moment nothing seemed more Nostalgic or more Patriotic than anything I had ever done – that necklace was the loving nod to my mother who dragged me to Fortunoff’s in the first place, the f-you to the ex who made me need an investment piece by divorcing me, and the loyalty to America for making sure that I, from the North, had a chunkier and more lemony version of the necklace I once coveted on a skinny bitch in Atlanta.
And once again, I prove that shopping really is therapy.
Now, about those boots...
Man, those gold necklaces were actually very pretty. In fact, there were a couple of chunky open-linked dangling chains that reminded me of those “investment” pieces that I always promised myself after I got my divorce, after I got an article published. And well, hadn’t those two milestones come and gone, boldly yet goldlessly? This is how shopping therapy works - you are deserving, you are justified (and repeat).
When I saw the eight-strand knot, with all eight strands a thick gorgeous lemony hue, it reminded me immediately of a necklace I once coveted – I was never good at that “not coveting things”, but I am very good with the other nine commandments (very!) so I don’t feel too guilty about coveting. I can honestly say that I never did covet my neighbors’ husbands (an 80 year old architect on one side, lesbian couple on the other), so what the hell could be so heinous about some old-fashioned jewelry coveting? The necklace I remembered was being worn by a skinny society woman in Atlanta, Georgia. I remember feeling so superior, so sophisticated, that I coveted only the necklace, and not her gumball-sized diamond studs. I mean, really! Those were obscene. I’ll take the statement necklace and nothing more, Miss Atlanta! AND, have I mentioned that the necklace I was holding right then was actually bigger and more buttery than Miss Gumball’s. Take that Atlanta! In fact, take that entire South! In that moment nothing seemed more Nostalgic or more Patriotic than anything I had ever done – that necklace was the loving nod to my mother who dragged me to Fortunoff’s in the first place, the f-you to the ex who made me need an investment piece by divorcing me, and the loyalty to America for making sure that I, from the North, had a chunkier and more lemony version of the necklace I once coveted on a skinny bitch in Atlanta.
And once again, I prove that shopping really is therapy.
Now, about those boots...