Soapbox

But It Was On Sale!

    I went to Kohls yesterday, because they were having a humongous sale, and I had a 30% off coupon. I was ready to rumble, folks. Felt like the world was my oyster.

I forgot that I hate oysters.

    I started browsing but ran into one of 3 problems at every turn. Either they didn't have my size in the color I wanted, they had the color but not my size (apparently I need a size 4 now, and this Kohls does not appear to stock women's clothes in a size 4) or they had it and I liked it but I just wasn't sure I wouldn't look silly in it. (Translation- am I  too old to wear that?)
    I couldn't even get the underpants I wanted, because they were "buy one, get one half-off" and I didn't need 2 packs of underwear, and I was not going to pay full price for one. I just wasn't. (And yes, I"m aware that it wouldn't be full price because I still had the 30% off coupon, but in spirit, it would be full-price, and I"m all about spirituality)

   So I wandered from department to department, getting more and more frustrated. When I went past the front I saw that it was getting very overcast, but I was determined to find something to use my coupon on, since it expired the next day. I decided to buy a few new bath towels because they were on sale and some of mine are getting pretty raggedy. Then I would at least have something to show for my efforts.
   There was a line to check out, and as I waited I looked out the front doors and say the weather go very quickly from threatening to nasty. We exchanged stories in the queue about where we were last week when the bad weather hit. As I was checking out a woman came in and said that her boyfriend called and told her there was a tornado warning.
    Oh good. And you came to Kohls!

    I asked the clerk for an extra bag for my head, but when I stepped out into the no-man's land between the inner and outer doors I saw that by now the rain was blowing completely horizontally, not so much "coming down" as "going by" and a stop sign at the end of the parking lot was flipping back and forth rapidly, the way signs do in those videos of hurricanes.  Ick.
     I got out my cell phone and tried to call home, in case Steve was wondering where his mother was in all this, but couldn't get a call to go through.
    So I contemplated my situation as a flash of lightning lit the desolate parking lot and decided that I would rather die at home than in a store that didn't carry my size. I took my sandals off and slipped them in my bag, zipped my purse and grabbed my keys with my finger on the "unlock" button. Then I pushed open the door and ran.

    I didn't exactly shout "Cowabunga"… I think I probably yelled "Oh shiiiiittt!" most of the way across the parking lot to the van, but in spirit, I was defying the elements. At the outset at least. By the time I wrenched the door open and thre my self and my bags inside I was screaming "I am insane!!"
    Cars were creeping along Karl Road as close to the center as they could go, since the outside lanes on both sides were significantly underwater. The wipers were going full-speed, as was the dripping from my hair down my face. I remembered that I had brand new bath towels in my bag- serendipity!- but I had tossed the bag into the back.  My dress was twisted akwardly around my wet legs and I could tell I was soaked through to my underpants. But I was on my way home to ride out the rest of the storm there.
   As it happened, I rode out the rest of the storm in my van, since even though it's only about a mile to my house, this storm was one of those cloudbursts that just scream past like a racecar and don't hang around. Another 5 miinutes at Kohls and I would have arrived home considerably drier. Oh well.
    After I stripped out of my wet things I tried to comb my hair. It was tangled into a million knots, even though  I had run a comb through it right before I went into the store. That wind must have been really something!
   I'm glad it did little more than water the grass and encourage the trees to give up some leaves a few days early.  I've had enough of bumpy weather. And shopping is just not worth it. Particularly when nothing is in your size.