A Coat of Pink
What better time of year to shop for next season’s winter coat than February?* Not only are the coats clearanced as the stores make way for more seasonally appropriate items like swimwear, but the Valentine’s merchandise is also clearanced as the stores make room for St Patrick’s Day merchandise like Guinness, giant lighted shamrocks, and Kilkenny.
With this in mind, we set out as a family to our nearby mall-based big box store to feast on the wonders of clearance sales. First we checked the Valentine’s merchandise, and found a cornucopia of reds, whites, and every hue in between. We loaded up on Valentine’s candy because Ellie is still pumping and needs the extra caloric intake, and I exercise a lot so I deserve it. We bought conversation hearts, heart-shaped peanut butter cups, and pink-wrappered Snickers that cause heart disease. My proudest find was a bag of clearanced M&Ms purchased with a coupon. Using a coupon on already cheap candy is one of my prouder accomplishments, right up there with the time I slammed the phone on the rude tech support guy.
After stocking up on candy, Ellie checked the clearanced Valentine’s children’s clothes. She found lots of pink jeans, and shirts with hearts, and pink jackets with hearts, the kind of stuff a toddler girl can wear year round without anyone realizing that it’s seasonally inappropriate. You can’t do that with, for example, Halloween clothing since we only acknowledge pumpkins and ghosts once a year, but love is celebrated year-round unless the playoffs are somehow involved. Sadly it’s difficult to make a pink outfit replete with hearts that doesn’t scream “feminine,” so we couldn’t find any clearanced clothes for the boys.
I stopped to check the coats on the way out, but discovered that they were already gone; the swimwear was already in their place. Discouraged, I proceeded to the check out. As the cashier rung up my purchases, I noticed the previous customer had left her debit card in the lane. I gave it to the cashier who smiled and nodded in what I thought was a callous way to acknowledge that some had just lost their link to their bank account. The cashier then started to swipe the card with my purchases, thinking the card was mine. Fortunately, I stopped her just in time. This anecdote has no relation to the rest of the story, other than to say I inadvertently came thisclose to committing bank fraud and having to stop blogging, unless of course the prison I’d land in had internet access.
I still wanted a cheap coat, and I knew we were in a mall; someone somewhere had to have a cheap coat they wanted to dump. We found some in a mall department store. They were cute snow suits decorated with adorable yet masculine animals, which appealed to Ellie, and they were marked down to $15 from $70, which appealed to me. We couldn’t find a coat big enough to fit Abbie in eight months, though, so we’ll have to keep looking. If only someone made Valentine’s Day coats.
* October.
With this in mind, we set out as a family to our nearby mall-based big box store to feast on the wonders of clearance sales. First we checked the Valentine’s merchandise, and found a cornucopia of reds, whites, and every hue in between. We loaded up on Valentine’s candy because Ellie is still pumping and needs the extra caloric intake, and I exercise a lot so I deserve it. We bought conversation hearts, heart-shaped peanut butter cups, and pink-wrappered Snickers that cause heart disease. My proudest find was a bag of clearanced M&Ms purchased with a coupon. Using a coupon on already cheap candy is one of my prouder accomplishments, right up there with the time I slammed the phone on the rude tech support guy.
After stocking up on candy, Ellie checked the clearanced Valentine’s children’s clothes. She found lots of pink jeans, and shirts with hearts, and pink jackets with hearts, the kind of stuff a toddler girl can wear year round without anyone realizing that it’s seasonally inappropriate. You can’t do that with, for example, Halloween clothing since we only acknowledge pumpkins and ghosts once a year, but love is celebrated year-round unless the playoffs are somehow involved. Sadly it’s difficult to make a pink outfit replete with hearts that doesn’t scream “feminine,” so we couldn’t find any clearanced clothes for the boys.
I stopped to check the coats on the way out, but discovered that they were already gone; the swimwear was already in their place. Discouraged, I proceeded to the check out. As the cashier rung up my purchases, I noticed the previous customer had left her debit card in the lane. I gave it to the cashier who smiled and nodded in what I thought was a callous way to acknowledge that some had just lost their link to their bank account. The cashier then started to swipe the card with my purchases, thinking the card was mine. Fortunately, I stopped her just in time. This anecdote has no relation to the rest of the story, other than to say I inadvertently came thisclose to committing bank fraud and having to stop blogging, unless of course the prison I’d land in had internet access.
I still wanted a cheap coat, and I knew we were in a mall; someone somewhere had to have a cheap coat they wanted to dump. We found some in a mall department store. They were cute snow suits decorated with adorable yet masculine animals, which appealed to Ellie, and they were marked down to $15 from $70, which appealed to me. We couldn’t find a coat big enough to fit Abbie in eight months, though, so we’ll have to keep looking. If only someone made Valentine’s Day coats.
* October.
posted by Matt at
10:14 PM
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