I regressed yesterday. Regressed to a time when I found shopping fun, and didn't think that Westfields was the spawn of Satan. I rediscovered the joy of faffing about. Well, kinda. I've always loved to faff, but not usually in shopping centres. Faffing about yesterday, I had to quell the urge to go purchase various items of 'couture' from Supre and lounge about the Juice Bar. It was that liberating!
You see, I have a new friend - well she's the sister of a friend, and she's just moved to the Glorious Gong. So she rings me up yesterday afternoon and said "So, B... I'm just going into the Gong to do, y'know, stuff, and was wondering if you want to come along for the ride...?" and I said "Hell, yeah!" (or words to that effect) and she tootled around in her little red Starlet, and off we went...
We wandered. And faffed. We looked for juice. We chose one single solitary chocolate from DJs counter (and then tried to work out, in terms of intensity of endorphin rush, just how rows of Cadbury Dairy Milk said single solitary choccie was worth...). We bemoaned the state of Veronika Maine this season, but applauded the amount of pinafores on offer. I am a fan of the pinafore. Becoming slightly obsessed if you must know...
Now this is all good, and not dissimilar to other shopping expeditions I've had with friends in the recent past. What took this particular outing into the realms of blogworthiness, was
a) the lack of a need for me to be actually getting something. No pressure. I likey.
and
b) the 25 minutes that we spent looking at hair accessories.
Now, I have quite long hair now. It's about 10cm below my shoulders. But I still have a short hair mentality. The long hair is perplexing me, and it's about time I embraced the length, made it work for me etc etc. This new friend, who shall be known forevermore as 'V', also has long hair, and decided to guide me in the ways of Mimco. So we spent literally half an hour in the accessories department of DJs, standing in front of the mirror, trying on alice bands and such like. It was fun. I giggled. I told her that the cream padded headband was just too Stepford for words. She told me that you never regret a Mimco purchase, but I didn't believe her, and refused to pay $40 for a piece of plastic. That looked like bone and complemented my natural hair tones perfectly. You can take the girl's mother out of Yorkshire, but you can't take the stingy Leeds gene out of the girl.
It was just so refreshing to act like a teenager again. To not have to be the sensible mother who has Things to Do, and Things to Get. To just chill, and enjoy the moment.
It took me back to the hours I used to spend with my friends, hanging in Miranda Fair. My mother didn't understand how we could spend so long there, without feeling the need to actually buy anything. I remember being in Granny Mays with a bunch of girls, laughing insanely at the 'rude' section hidden up the back of the shop. We laughed so much that Kim wet her pants. And that caused us to laugh even more... and we continued to giggle and carry on as we trooped up to Best & Less to get her some clean knickers.
And seeing as I've been reminded that there are fun and carefree times when you're a teenager, I'll try and be less glower-ey next time I'm in shopping-mission-mode.
You see, I have a new friend - well she's the sister of a friend, and she's just moved to the Glorious Gong. So she rings me up yesterday afternoon and said "So, B... I'm just going into the Gong to do, y'know, stuff, and was wondering if you want to come along for the ride...?" and I said "Hell, yeah!" (or words to that effect) and she tootled around in her little red Starlet, and off we went...
We wandered. And faffed. We looked for juice. We chose one single solitary chocolate from DJs counter (and then tried to work out, in terms of intensity of endorphin rush, just how rows of Cadbury Dairy Milk said single solitary choccie was worth...). We bemoaned the state of Veronika Maine this season, but applauded the amount of pinafores on offer. I am a fan of the pinafore. Becoming slightly obsessed if you must know...
Now this is all good, and not dissimilar to other shopping expeditions I've had with friends in the recent past. What took this particular outing into the realms of blogworthiness, was
a) the lack of a need for me to be actually getting something. No pressure. I likey.
and
b) the 25 minutes that we spent looking at hair accessories.
Now, I have quite long hair now. It's about 10cm below my shoulders. But I still have a short hair mentality. The long hair is perplexing me, and it's about time I embraced the length, made it work for me etc etc. This new friend, who shall be known forevermore as 'V', also has long hair, and decided to guide me in the ways of Mimco. So we spent literally half an hour in the accessories department of DJs, standing in front of the mirror, trying on alice bands and such like. It was fun. I giggled. I told her that the cream padded headband was just too Stepford for words. She told me that you never regret a Mimco purchase, but I didn't believe her, and refused to pay $40 for a piece of plastic. That looked like bone and complemented my natural hair tones perfectly. You can take the girl's mother out of Yorkshire, but you can't take the stingy Leeds gene out of the girl.
It was just so refreshing to act like a teenager again. To not have to be the sensible mother who has Things to Do, and Things to Get. To just chill, and enjoy the moment.
It took me back to the hours I used to spend with my friends, hanging in Miranda Fair. My mother didn't understand how we could spend so long there, without feeling the need to actually buy anything. I remember being in Granny Mays with a bunch of girls, laughing insanely at the 'rude' section hidden up the back of the shop. We laughed so much that Kim wet her pants. And that caused us to laugh even more... and we continued to giggle and carry on as we trooped up to Best & Less to get her some clean knickers.
And seeing as I've been reminded that there are fun and carefree times when you're a teenager, I'll try and be less glower-ey next time I'm in shopping-mission-mode.
posted by actonb at 10:05 am
6 Comments:
You should come up and mallrat with me. Guaranteed not to want to buy anything due to poverty.
I'm always free ...
I guess you haven't lived until a (non) shopping expedition has rendered you incontinent...
Did poor Kim ever recover from the stigma, or was she forever tarred as Kim-who-peed-her-pants-in-Granny-May's....
donnie - er, no. she didn't. She may or may not have ended up changing schools. Which is the harsh flipside of teenage girldom.
LaRue - for sure, we'll do mallratting. When you move down here to be close to work!
I understand your longer hair pain. I am currently growing mine and what do you do with it aside from pop it in a pony tail?
Help me OB1 youre my only hope.
Ah KR! I'm glad you asked...
I have been doing the 'put it into a pony tail, it's giving me the shits' for a while now. But you need to change your mindset. I couldn't let it loose coz I couldn't deal with the knots. But I just had to buy a brush... So now it stays out, with cute head bands and clips, and people say 'gee B, I didn't realise your hair was so long, gee it looks nice' etc etc, which is quite lovely actually.
I started growing my hair when I fell pregnant with the twins, coz I figured there ws no way in hell I was going to be able to afford the time or the money to get it cut every 4 weeks (without fail). Because it was very very short for a very long time.
ahhhh the long hair dilemma.
having just gone the chop myself, i know and understand your pain of the long hair 'do'.
there is the pony tail, the bun, the twisted bun thingy, the french roll with one of those ugly claw clips and you can always do the 'half up half down'. and dont forget the plait!
that should keep you going for a while
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