DON'T MENTION IT

Okay....I am just going to say it....I hate underwear shopping.  There.  Enough said.  If you do not want to join in on the  discussion of the undignified and extremely frustrating act of shopping for unmentionables, now is your chance to run, screaming from my blog!  Be advised.

I have spent more time shopping for underwear in the past two weeks than I ever care to do again in my life!  There is not a worse experience than that kind of buying.  Unless it includes listening to your 17 year old complain the whole time she is with you about how people are looking at her!

If you were able to catch the gist of my last post, you caught on to the indignity end of shopping for lingerie.  First, I had to suffer through the trying on of items. WHEN did my 25 year old body become 42???  I used to be able to shop for whatever I liked not for....what?....function!  But, I will say, that Vickie is a really good picker-upper (if you know what I am saying) and has lovely, functional undies suited to a 42 year old mom.  I also LOVE the sales girls at Vickie's!  Because there is NOTHING worse than shopping for ladieswear at Penney's and finding that everything you just brought into the dressing room is the wrong size, style or cut!  That means, you have to get the new stuff off and get completely dressed again and go out and hope you get it right this time around, or else you will be doing the whole on/off deal again!  At Vickie's the girls keep popping outside your room offering to get you whatever you need.  I never had to leave my dressing room!  That alone, is worth the price of their goodies!

I am convinced that if you are the worst sales girl in any given store - Penney's, Vickie's, Soma or otherwise - your punishment is working in the bra department.  I need a drink after spending 10 minutes in there!  Honestly, there HAS to be a better way to display unmentionables with STRAPS than hanging them all crowded up together on hangers!!!!!  This is especially an embarrassing incident in Vickie's because no matter how much I appreciate their wares, I do NOT want to call attention to myself in that place.  BUT...that is next to impossible in any intimate apparel department or store!  No matter how delicately I try to rummage - yes!  RUMMAGE! - through the racks and hangers, I end up with ten tangled bras around my head trying to find a sales girl to help me escape.  I mean, you need to be Harry Houdini to shop for those things!!!!!  The only thing I can see through the mess is my sales girl, Kylie, coming over, WITH HELP, stifling a laugh and untying me like a rodeo champ!

What I hate about Vickie's though, is the porn all over the place!!!!  I think some men go in there because they don't have internet access!  They just wander around.  They aren't shopping with wives or girlfriends...they are just there for the peep show framed on the walls.  And I can't decide if that is worse, or the fact that just when I felt halfway decent about myself in the dressing room, once I set foot back in the store, I have to compete with Sleezy Girl posters all over the joint!

It is a humbling experience.  And infuriating on so many levels!  (body image, tangles, competition) I am beginning to think that the only decent idea coming out of the 60's was going au natural.  I know, it isn't a pretty thought....but it would save me from being hogtied in a lingerie store somewhere!