Me on the other hand.... I always refuse help. Politely, of course, but still. I never really understood the appeal of having someone guide you, hold your hand basically, as you make your way through the store. Unless you're looking for a really specific outfit or piece of equipment, I feel like you should have the patience to wander around the store a bit by yourself. [I could make a comment here about how I think that's just a reflection about how society nowadays is afraid of being even momentarily directionless, but that's a long rant for a different day.] But what qualifies as "a really specific outfit or piece of equipment"? Let me put it this way: you cannot ask a sales assistant, "Excuse me, do you have any long black skirts?" but you CAN ask, "Excuse me, do you have any purple wetsuits with orange trim that only go to the knee?"
I know you're probably shocked, seeing as I'm such a huge fan of surfing and water sports in general (ok, ok, I'm actually such a terrible swimmer that I'd still wear Floaties if it were socially acceptable), but I've never had to look for a purple wetsuit with orange trim that only goes to the knees. I've had to look for purple wetsuits with orange trim before, but the length was unspecified so it did not qualify for assistance.
I especially liked it when shopkeepers in Israel would ask if I wanted any help, because in Hebrew you ask quite literally, "Is it possible to help?" "Efshar la'azor?" The polite response is to say something like, "No, thank you." But the correct response to the construction, "Efshar...?/Is is possible to...?" is to say, "I efshar./Impossible." I decided that this was deliciously dramatic, and eventually I couldn't contain myself any longer. A shopkeeper asked, "Is it possible to help?" And I looked at her like a woman on the edge, with a hint of weary helplessness in my voice, and I said, "Impossible." As in, not only do I not need your help, but it is in fact literally impossible for you to help. And because the word "efshar" cannot be paired with people (meaning, with efshar you cannot say things like, "It is impossible for ME to do xyz."), it implied that NO ONE on Earth could help me. I was doomed to walk the Earth's department stores, wandering seemingly endlessly like an eternal Odysseus with a shopping fixation. It was one of those times that I desperately wished that I didn't have an accent in Hebrew. It would have been nice for the shopkeeper to not brush off my bizarre response as that of a confused tourist/immigrant, and instead treat it like the serious response of an emo native Israeli. But such is the price one pays for immigration... Aliyah ain't free.
But once we get past that initial question, I'm actually a rather pleasant shopper. My mom, on the other hand, is the true pill. She means well, but she just cannot make a decision and stick with it for the life of her. I would understand it more if she were having trouble making up her mind on life-altering decisions or major moral dilemmas, such as whether or not she should sell her business or how she should vote on Prop 8, but the woman spent a full thirty minutes debating the various merits of three different pairs of jeans at Baby Gap. In front of the sales assistant, of course, who politely listened as my mother made up her mind then changed it several seconds later, and who helpfully contributed occasional, "Hmmm,"s and "Yup"s.
I think the problem is that my mom is under the impression that the Industrial Revolution and subsequent advances of technology never happened. We were looking for clothing to send to my baby niece who lives 3,000 miles away, and I think my mom was under the impression that if the clothing did not fit exactly or that if my sister-in-law wasn't crazy about the style, then it would be all for naught. I think my mom fancies herself a modern Ma Ingalls, who hand to sew by hand (and later by a primitive sewing machine) all of the clothing for her family, and if it were judged to be too ugly or too small, then they were simply fucked and it was a waste of valuable hours Ma Ingalls could have being doing industrious prairie woman shit like laundry and cooking. My mom seems to forget that nowadays if clothing is too small or too ugly, we can take it into one of the 300 million Gaps in this country (we now have one per citizen or green card holder) and exchange it for either the same outfit in a larger size or a completely different outfit. What amazing times we are living in!
Heyyyyyyy, guys! What's up?Believe it or not, this beluga whale actually has something to do with shopping with my mother. Besides her irrational need to involve shopkeepers in her shopping excursions, my mother also irrationally believes that I want to dress a certain way. Which certain way? Well. In spite of my love of dressing in such shabby clothing that sometimes hobos welcome me as one of their own, my mother thinks that I would like to have expensive new clothing from Bloomingdales. Whenever I'm home she drags me into that store, and as I wander around miserably, with my bulging stomach creating unpleasant lumps underneath my Walmart t-shirt and my fat ass exerting dangerous pressure on the seat of my jeans from Target, my mom holds up tiny designer outfits and calls out, "How about this one?"
The woman is delusional, I tell you. I mean, bless her maternal heart, I think she honestly believes that I'd look good if I dressed better. I've tried explaining to her that I don't think we should be spending that kind of money on something that I'll without fail accidentally spill spaghetti sauce on and ruin, and also designer outfits only look good on twigs. On skinny girls, they look glamorous at their best. With me in one of those outfits, I look like a beluga whale trying (with limited success) to pass through a coffee stirrer straw.
It's sort of like the modern, Sea World version of getting a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.
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