February 18, 2008--Snowbirding: Shopping
I hate malls. I’m a city person and love walking the streets and stumbling on shops that I hadn’t noticed before, rummaging around in them for things I don’t need. Like shoes that look good in the store but don’t fit right when I have them in my closet. Or odd pieces of Bisque pottery which now reside undisplayed in bubble wrap in our basement storage locker.
Malls, with their piped in air and Muzak give me the willies. They make me feel as if I’m an alien visiting another planet or the aliens themselves have taken over this huge parking lot on my planet and plopped this structure full of ersatz shops right in the middle of it.
Not that I’ve been in that many malls, but my impression is that they are carbon copies of each other—every one includes at least one Sunglass Hut, a Gap, a Sharper Image store, a mini-Barney’s, a version of the real Tiffany’s, a Macy’s-Bloomingdales-Neiman-Marcus-Nodstrom, and at least a dozen places to poison oneself in something called Food Courts. I prefer overeating in actual restaurants.
Parking at malls, though, is easy; but to find your car after an hour of aimless wandering around in hundred-acre, 100 degree parking lots can easily take at least another hour. But then of course you have to have a car and spend 40 bucks to fill the tank. Neither of these things, to me, is in any way desirable.
And, to tell the truth, I hate to shop even in a real city. Sure there are these out-of-the-way places to discover, but I don’t have the patience to sort through the racks or poke among dusty shelves in search of stuff that will then sit in my closet. There is nothing ideological here—a resistance to consumption. It’s simply that I’m not a shopper. I can wear the same two shirts and pairs of pants until they need to be discarded. I own just one pair of shoes that I actually wear—the others are just waiting to be donated to Saint Vincent de Paul. When things are undeniably wearing out, I can get myself mobilized to replace them. But recreational shopping just doesn’t do it for me. I’d rather go for a physical in spite of the fact that I also hate doctors.
Something, though, has changed since we have been wintering in Florida.
It all began when Rona’s sister Sharon bought her an early-retirement gift. She knew Rona had taken up horseback riding and to acknowledge that as well as wish her well as she “rode off into the future,” Sharon sent Rona a terrific riding hat from Neiman-Marcus. It was a thoughtful and even witty gift except for one thing—Rona has a very big head and N-M did not have a hat in her size. So with Sharon’s permission, Rona returned it and received a very generous store credit.
Since there is no Neiman-Marcus in New York City Rona brought the credit with her to Florida feeling certain she would locate one here. And sure enough, in the endless Sawgrass Mills Mall there is huge Neiman-Marcus store called the Last Call. A place, we learned, to which all the Neiman-Marcuses on the east coast send their unsold goods to be offered to eager customers at rock-bottom discount prices. Sales where you take 20 percent off the lowest price on the tag, which is already 50 percent off the original price and then, if it’s Presidents Day Weekend you deduct another 20 percent; and finally, if you open a Neiman-Marcus credit card account, they give you a further 10 percent discount. I’m not good at this sort of math an should have paid more attention in elementary school when they aught us about percentages, but this pricing means you get great bargains on, what we soon discovered, terrific merchandise.
And so, after a surprisingly good lunch at Paul’s, a faux French bistro right next to N-M, we ventured into the Last Call. It is at least two acres in size and filled, from wall to wall, with racks of designer clothes. Thousands and thousands of dresses, suits, slacks, shirts and blouses, shoes, coats, everything—enough to keep even a shopaholic sated for months and months. Or, as it turned out, Rona and me for hours and hours.
Before we knew it, we had two dressing rooms exploding with clothes to try on. The salesperson who helped us was dancing with glee as she contemplated at least a day’s worth of commissions. With my help Rona had about a dozen dresses set aside, as many pants, three pairs of shoes, at least a half dozen tops, and a jacket or twoor three.
While passing through the men’s section on the way to the women’s department, I pulled two top coats off the racks, three sport jackets, five shirts, and four pairs of trousers. Just from the few racks that lined both sides of the aisle! We were both ravenous. As if we had awakened from a long fast. I could barely carry all the items that we accumulated during the first 15 minutes of hunting and gathering. Ana, the saleswoman, raced back and forth to the dressing rooms to unburden us. Other less-crazed shoppers stopped in their tracks to watch us in our feeding frenzy.
What inner forces had been so unleashed? What had been pent up in us all these years that was now bursting free beyond our control? Was it the unaccustomed sun and warmth when we had been used to struggling against the cold during our typical winters in the north? Was it having time on her hands, living here now somewhat released from decades of responsibility? Was it the wine we had at lunch that had so uninhibited us? Or are we just cheap and couldn’t resist an incredible bargain—10 percent of 20 percent of 20 percent of 50 percent means, doesn’t it, that something from Armani that was originally $1,200, if we use our new N-M card, is, what, free??
* * *
After we calmed down and tried on what between us felt like more than 100 garments, Rona bought “only” eight things (six of them pants) and I purchased five—one pair of trousers, three shirts, a winter coat (as if I’ll ever again need one), and a pair of sandals—with our haul we stumbled back out into the boiling parking lot and miraculously managed to locate our car in less than 20 minutes.
With a literal hangover from over-indulging, we turned cautiously back onto Sunrise Boulevard. When I felt recovered enough from the intoxication, I said, “You know, I overheard Ana say that they get new shipments from their east coast stores every Saturday.”
“So?”
“Well, maybe we should then plan to come here every Monday.”
“What?”
“You said you liked the smoked salmon on baguette at Paul’s. And then there’s always . . .”
Malls, with their piped in air and Muzak give me the willies. They make me feel as if I’m an alien visiting another planet or the aliens themselves have taken over this huge parking lot on my planet and plopped this structure full of ersatz shops right in the middle of it.
Not that I’ve been in that many malls, but my impression is that they are carbon copies of each other—every one includes at least one Sunglass Hut, a Gap, a Sharper Image store, a mini-Barney’s, a version of the real Tiffany’s, a Macy’s-Bloomingdales-Neiman-Marcus-Nodstrom, and at least a dozen places to poison oneself in something called Food Courts. I prefer overeating in actual restaurants.
Parking at malls, though, is easy; but to find your car after an hour of aimless wandering around in hundred-acre, 100 degree parking lots can easily take at least another hour. But then of course you have to have a car and spend 40 bucks to fill the tank. Neither of these things, to me, is in any way desirable.
And, to tell the truth, I hate to shop even in a real city. Sure there are these out-of-the-way places to discover, but I don’t have the patience to sort through the racks or poke among dusty shelves in search of stuff that will then sit in my closet. There is nothing ideological here—a resistance to consumption. It’s simply that I’m not a shopper. I can wear the same two shirts and pairs of pants until they need to be discarded. I own just one pair of shoes that I actually wear—the others are just waiting to be donated to Saint Vincent de Paul. When things are undeniably wearing out, I can get myself mobilized to replace them. But recreational shopping just doesn’t do it for me. I’d rather go for a physical in spite of the fact that I also hate doctors.
Something, though, has changed since we have been wintering in Florida.
It all began when Rona’s sister Sharon bought her an early-retirement gift. She knew Rona had taken up horseback riding and to acknowledge that as well as wish her well as she “rode off into the future,” Sharon sent Rona a terrific riding hat from Neiman-Marcus. It was a thoughtful and even witty gift except for one thing—Rona has a very big head and N-M did not have a hat in her size. So with Sharon’s permission, Rona returned it and received a very generous store credit.
Since there is no Neiman-Marcus in New York City Rona brought the credit with her to Florida feeling certain she would locate one here. And sure enough, in the endless Sawgrass Mills Mall there is huge Neiman-Marcus store called the Last Call. A place, we learned, to which all the Neiman-Marcuses on the east coast send their unsold goods to be offered to eager customers at rock-bottom discount prices. Sales where you take 20 percent off the lowest price on the tag, which is already 50 percent off the original price and then, if it’s Presidents Day Weekend you deduct another 20 percent; and finally, if you open a Neiman-Marcus credit card account, they give you a further 10 percent discount. I’m not good at this sort of math an should have paid more attention in elementary school when they aught us about percentages, but this pricing means you get great bargains on, what we soon discovered, terrific merchandise.
And so, after a surprisingly good lunch at Paul’s, a faux French bistro right next to N-M, we ventured into the Last Call. It is at least two acres in size and filled, from wall to wall, with racks of designer clothes. Thousands and thousands of dresses, suits, slacks, shirts and blouses, shoes, coats, everything—enough to keep even a shopaholic sated for months and months. Or, as it turned out, Rona and me for hours and hours.
Before we knew it, we had two dressing rooms exploding with clothes to try on. The salesperson who helped us was dancing with glee as she contemplated at least a day’s worth of commissions. With my help Rona had about a dozen dresses set aside, as many pants, three pairs of shoes, at least a half dozen tops, and a jacket or twoor three.
While passing through the men’s section on the way to the women’s department, I pulled two top coats off the racks, three sport jackets, five shirts, and four pairs of trousers. Just from the few racks that lined both sides of the aisle! We were both ravenous. As if we had awakened from a long fast. I could barely carry all the items that we accumulated during the first 15 minutes of hunting and gathering. Ana, the saleswoman, raced back and forth to the dressing rooms to unburden us. Other less-crazed shoppers stopped in their tracks to watch us in our feeding frenzy.
What inner forces had been so unleashed? What had been pent up in us all these years that was now bursting free beyond our control? Was it the unaccustomed sun and warmth when we had been used to struggling against the cold during our typical winters in the north? Was it having time on her hands, living here now somewhat released from decades of responsibility? Was it the wine we had at lunch that had so uninhibited us? Or are we just cheap and couldn’t resist an incredible bargain—10 percent of 20 percent of 20 percent of 50 percent means, doesn’t it, that something from Armani that was originally $1,200, if we use our new N-M card, is, what, free??
* * *
After we calmed down and tried on what between us felt like more than 100 garments, Rona bought “only” eight things (six of them pants) and I purchased five—one pair of trousers, three shirts, a winter coat (as if I’ll ever again need one), and a pair of sandals—with our haul we stumbled back out into the boiling parking lot and miraculously managed to locate our car in less than 20 minutes.
With a literal hangover from over-indulging, we turned cautiously back onto Sunrise Boulevard. When I felt recovered enough from the intoxication, I said, “You know, I overheard Ana say that they get new shipments from their east coast stores every Saturday.”
“So?”
“Well, maybe we should then plan to come here every Monday.”
“What?”
“You said you liked the smoked salmon on baguette at Paul’s. And then there’s always . . .”
posted by Steven Zwerling at
10:38 AM
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