June 7, 2012

• Errand Escapades

  I started my day with my weekly delivery of backpack food to underprivileged kids at a local middle school. I have done it every Thursday since the beginning of 2012, and it is definitely a “feel good” errand. Every week, a nice young man named Sam meets me at the school door with a smile and helps me unload the 30 bags from my van. Sam is moving on to high school, and I probably won’t see him at the final delivery next week. I gave him a card thanking him for his help, including a gift card to congratulate him on his graduation. He gave me a big hug when I left, which was really sweet.

  The rest of my errands were more, um….commercial in nature. I hopped on the highway, crossed the river, and stopped at the snootier of the two outdoor malls in the area. I was headed to Banana Republic, a store in which I rarely shop. I’m more of a Gap/Old Navy/Marshalls shopper, if you must know. But recently, “Real Simple” magazine did an article on the best t-shirts. (A very high brow topic, I’m sure you’d agree.) One of the things they covered was which stores had the best plain white t-shirts, depending on what criteria were most important to you as a shopper. 8 1/2 years post my second c-section, the most important white t-shirt criteria for me is opaqueness. Real Simple says the white cotton t-shirt at Banana Republic for $22.50 is the best. I am not the kind of person who spends $22.50 on a t-shirt. I know many people spend more than that, but I’m sorry – that is insane. I rarely pay full price for anything, including t-shirts that are $10 at full price. So, this was a stretch….but it’s really, really hard to find a white t-shirt that isn’t sheer these days, so I decided to woman up and pay $22.50 for a properly opaque t-shirt.

  When I walked into the store, it was swarming. Did everyone decide to buy opaque t-shirts today? No. Clueless me – I walked into the opening day of the Trina Turk collection at Banana. Does this mean anything to you? I’ll tell you what – it meant a lot to every stick thin, fake tanned, highlighted woman in wedge heels who shopped at Banana Republic this morning. But not to me. Here I was stressing about my $22.50 white shirt, and they were all stalking one another outside the dressing rooms to get their hands on the only size 2 pair of Trina Turk shorts left. (Her stuff has unique patterns – sort of a cruise wear look, in fabric described by the L.A. Times as “sun-drenched prints.”) I’m not real big on print shorts, and I might be able to get one ankle into a size 2….so these ladies didn’t even look in my direction. It was tremendously difficult for me to not roll my eyes right in their faces. Seriously – I showed enormous self restraint.

  I got in line to buy my full-price t-shirt. The line was long, and it was slooooow, because all the ritzy ladies were opening new lines of credit to get 25% off their Trina Turk fashions. (It seems that the Banana Republic line of Trina Turk fashions are about 50% off her regular line, sold at high-end boutiques and department stores. Throw in 25% savings and the ladies were practically foaming at the mouth.)

  They had 3 registers going, but as soon as I was next in line, they went down to 2 registers so that several of the sales guys could chat behind the counter about how busy it was. As I stepped up to pay (finally), another Trina Turk fan got in line behind me, and they opened a 3rd register again.  I tell you, there is no respect for the single white t-shirt purchase. I was pretty snotty to my salesgirl, who was really quite lovely and jubilant, but I had to express my frustration somewhere. I’m from Jersey, after all.

  From there, I went to Panera and ordered a salad to go. It was a gorgeous day, so even though my hands were full, I decided to go out the back door and walk around the long way to my car. It was way longer than I anticipated (terrible sense of direction), and took me past more than one dumpster. OMG – what would the Trina Turk girls say!!

  Next, I was off to Home Goods to return some gigantic pillows I bought for the master bedroom that are 100% the wrong color. I stood in line not so patiently (I had used up all my patience by then) to return them and finally heaved the pillows and the receipt onto the counter. “Um, only one of these pillows is on this receipt,” said the cashier. I just stared at her with my mouth agape. Huh? I honestly didn’t know what I was supposed to say to that. Eventually, I caught on that the original salesperson had given me the pillow for free. Apparently, this was a problem, because I wanted to return it. The saleslady just stared back at me, waiting for me to tell her what to do. What was I supposed to do? Keep it, just because it was free, even though I didn’t want it? “Just take it back,” I said. “Are you sure?” she asked. 

  It was quite the stupid conversation. I don’t want this pillow, and it turns out I didn’t pay for it in the first place, which means your store still owns it, and now it’s back in your possession. Why am I still here, lady?

  She credited my account for the other pillow and then laughed, saying, “Wow – that would have been a great deal if you liked it!” 

  Uh, yes. It would. But I don’t.

  Throughout this entire day, I was getting e-mails on my phone constantly – from other moms in our son’s class. The room parents decided to arrange for everyone to bring in gift cards to present to the teacher in a personalized flower pot. Lovely, except I bought teacher gifts 2 days ago, at Home Goods, when I bought (and stole) giant, ill-hued pillows. So now I have more gifts than I need, and I really don’t want to go back to Home Goods with that same receipt. I never go there, and now I remember why.

  I have been frantically trying to do all these little annoying things before the last week of school, because my presence is required AT the school for most of that last week. So it’s not so helpful when things I have already checked off my to-do list need to get undone.

  People had already claimed gift cards to lots of places, in a long line of “reply all” e-mails. So I had to rack my brain for another place – something “summery” where the teacher could take her two young sons. I racked my brain. (And what I mean is, I looked up and scanned the strip mall in front of me.) I immediately replied all to say I would get a gift card to the smoothie shop. The smoothie shop that is conveniently located next to the dollar store, where I needed to go and buy prizes for two different school functions happening next week. Check, check, check.

  Rushed home, got the kids, rushed to piano, rushed off with our daughter to get a birthday gift for a party on Saturday, rushed home to put out the cooler for the farm share delivery, rushed to pack the kids dinner, rushed to change into nicer clothes, rushed to swim team, sat still for 15 minutes. The Mr. came to relieve me, and I was off to a dinner at the school, catered, all adults – very nice, fairly social. Aaaah. Then, I organized an outing with some friends for some vino al fresco. Even better.

  I got home to an e-mail request for ziploc bags filled with popcorn for 23 kids tomorrow.

  Nope. Sorry. Not this time.

  • 11:10 pm
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