Datebook: Monday, December 11th ~ 2006

My daughter came home for 18 hours this weekend. Of course I am grateful for any moment I get, but I could not help but notice that my minutes were allotted based on her room mate going to New York for the weekend, and her boyfriend being in a show out of town.

But, it’s okay; I take whatever I can get.

It was a particularly pleasant week-end because my mother and my sister came to visit also, saving me a five hour drive and the probable sing-along in the car to every Burl Ives Christmas song known to mankind.

We did the typical things that American women do when they get together—watch movies, eat, and shop.

My daughter has a peculiar fascination with documentaries, so although most of us would be lulled into stopping channel surfing at any Life Time movie or anything with Johnny Depp in it, my daughter becomes mesmerized by the those deep monotone voices that narrate such hits as the mating habits of beetles, the historical perspective of basket-weaving, and the importance of harvesting grain.

Her interest is made even more endearing by the fact that she can consume a bowl of ice-cream while watching these cliff-hangers and never gain an ounce.

After watching an hour-special on the cultural development in North Korea—basically hanging a second photo of General Kim in each home--we were able to gain yardage and dominate the remote control for a return play of the last thirty minutes of “Mouse Hunt” before she acquiesced to join us at the mall.

For my daughter, this is much like stopping at the General Store in Hooterville. Our local mall has (shudder) only one floor and the anchor stores are (sigh) Macys and Sears. We have to “go into town” to find a real mall, with Nordstrom’s, and Neiman, and Saks.

So we ventured out to our rancher-style shopping mall, complete with Karen Carpenter lyrics waffling throughout the candy-cane decorations.

It was in Victoria Secrets that I had a semi-epiphany. I’m not sure when it happened because it all merged together like Waldorf salad to form this concoction in my head that basically said--the only thing I could use in that store was the purse size spray cologne.

Not everyone had received this message however, including the 50-ish woman, who I believe might have needed to shop at Elizabeth instead of Liz Claiborne, if you get my drift, who was carrying a pink fur Santa hat, a pink fur mini skirt with matching garters, and a pink, sorry but you have to get this visual, fur bra.

Well, to be honest, I could almost see how she was lulled in to thinking it was probably okay to buy these items. At the entrance to the store, the marketing people placed these little pink spotted dogs flanked by racks of flannel pajama bottoms with matching little sleep shirts.

It looks so wholesome.

Then you move back into the second tier and you have the fifty dollar bras and underwear that are 3 for 25.00.

Those bins hold zillions of panties that all look small and closer inspection reveals that they are in fact filled with Smalls and Extra Smalls. I found one pair of “large” but when I held up the lace edges, I wasn’t sure if it was underwear or a table runner so I dropped it and pretended I couldn’t find color in the mediums.

We had a coupon which basically meant we could get 25.00 dollars worth of merchandise for 15.00. This is, of course, a ten dollar savings, or, as my husband looks at it, spending fifteen dollars for something you don’t need—you know, the glass is half-empty or half-full concept.

After spotting Pinky Tuscadero with the fur, I told my daughter to see if she could find something she wanted and she strolled right into the third tier of the store, which might be compared with the same number in Dante’s levels of hell.

She seemed oblivious to the leather, rhinestones, and fur as she found another display of underwear that seemed, from my position in the center aisle, to be comprised of lace, floss, or embroidery thread.

I did notice the red velour display mannequin had on a pair of black “boy shorts” with a saying across the buttocks that read “No Peeking”.

My daughter brought me three items that I figured I could wrap in a thimble to be creative (I confess, I did not look at what they were, or what, if anything, was written on them) and then she disappeared to get a pretzel because the ice-cream must have worn off.

As I stood in line to pay I noticed an older woman look down at the items in my hand and with a slight, oh yes I saw that ever so slight raise of an eyebrow, she disappeared amongst the lip glosses and body powder.

It was then I turned and looked at the people in the line and realized that most were probably not doing personal shopping either.

In fact, most were probably wearing Hanes Her Way underneath those Christmas sweats and stretch pants. And if there would be any sayings plastered across their backsides they would say things like “Move Back”, or “Objects Are Larger Than They Appear.”

And there wouldn’t be any boy shorts in the crowd—maybe they could make some “Man Shorts” with those good 2 inch elastic bands in vibrant colors.

Yes, I was really thinking I had the idea for a marketing miracle as I inched my way to the cash register—maybe make a fourth tier area and call it “Vicky’s Secret”, you know, for us regular women, until I spotted “Pinky’ out of the corner of my eye. She, having made her purchases, had obviously missed the leather and feather bra and matching panty set that she was now holding up to the full length mirror.

In my “wipe this from my mind” plea, I paid for my purchases without remembering to give the clerk my coupon.

Maybe my daughter is right. Maybe we should stick to multi-level malls.

Mombo