Consumer Satisfaction

I’ve read my Jacques Lacan and Juliet Schor. I know that shopping won’t alleviate the deep pit of existential yearning within me. But sometimes it helps.

On Friday it didn’t help at all. In fact, it only dug the pit deeper.

I needed some new clothes for work. I went to the mall (not many options out here in the heartland: it’s the mall, Wal-Mart, or a very few independent shops that specialize in Christmas sweaters) (and one boutique in Red State Capital City Hip Neighborhood that specializes in clothes that are too small for me).

The mall was grim. The clothes were ugly. I watched a mother be mean to her little girl who was just about E’s age, and I wondered if I was ever that mean to E. I got sad and went home.

But on Saturday it was a different story. I realized Friday night that I had forgotten to go to my favorite too-expensive department store which, alas, is closing, so I can no longer go look at too-expensive clothes and wish I could buy them, but meanwhile, hurrah, is having an unbelievable sale, so perhaps for once I could manage to buy some of those clothes before they disappeared altogether.

This time I remembered the essential key to shopping happiness: I brought M. Nothing like a trip alone with Mommy to make a girl happy, especially a shopping trip with the promise of a café at the end. And nothing like a happy girl to make a mother happy.

M loves to shop. And she’s good at it. And somehow she makes me better at it.

We powered through that department store. We took stacks of clothes into the dressing rooms. I tried them on and M provided incisive commentary. “You HAVE to buy that.” “No.” “Wide skirts make you look fat.” “YES!!”

We mostly agreed, though she was disappointed that I didn’t buy the black leather miniskirt (when would I wear a black leather miniskirt? besides, it barely fit). But I did get a big pile of clothes, including the first and second cashmere sweaters of my life. And the exact bag I’ve been looking for for a year. And M got an over-sized pink crocheted newsboy hat. And the savings, oy, the savings…

So yeah, the deep pit of existential yearning is still there, but the shopping definitely helped, for the moment.