| Stephen Lewis: Love of shopping not mainly for food |
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By: STEPHEN LEWIS, Post Columnist
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Posted: Sunday, August 23, 2009 7:13 am
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When I was a kid, I used to love to go shopping. Over the years I've noticed I enjoy going less and less. I'm talking about clothes shopping, not grocery shopping of course. I still love going to the grocery store and pretending I'm going to buy something from the deli. If you didn't know, they'll give you a slice of whatever meat and cheese you want to try. Lately I've been carrying in a couple slices of bread with me and I take the free slices of meats and cheeses and make a sandwich. You can try this too but I suggest you rotate the stores because they do catch on eventually.
Nowadays I shop for clothes about once a year. And I'm trying to figure a way to cut that down. Unfortunately, I finally reached a point that most of my clothes were either threadbare or as my wife put it, "horrifically out of fashion." I don't claim to be a fashionista nor do I aspire to be one but I do like to look within at least one decade of being in fashion.
So on a recent Saturday morning the wife and I took a trip around Murfreesboro to get some shopping done. I've heard quite a bit about this place called "The Avenue" so I suggested we start there. What dungeon master created this place? This is the type of torture that Barack Obama promised to end at Guantanamo Bay. When you shop at this place you're at the mercy of the outside temperature, which on this particular Saturday was somewhere in the low 200's. I've cooked ribs at a lower temperature! The real torture is going into each nice air-conditioned store and then realizing you will eventually step back out into Satan's lair. Russian spies have given up national security secrets under less torture.
My wife then suggested we might try the mall. Yes, of course, I loved the mall when I was a kid. I remember our trips to Hickory Hollow Mall when I was young. Nothing like a slice of pizza from Sbarro Pizza served by those fellows with their shirts unbuttoned down far enough to see their gold necklaces and chest hair sticking out like Mr. Kotter's afro. Then follow that up with a vanilla ice cream bar dipped in chocolate and rolled in crushed peanuts. And on the way out you talked your mom into a dollar’s worth of double-dipped peanuts or coconut haystacks at the Sears candy counter. What memories. Yes, yes, let's go to the mall.
Not wanting to spend money outside of Rutherford County and not willing to risk our lives by going to Hickory Hollow Mall, we decided to visit our very own Stones River Mall. But our trip wasn't anything like I remembered. No pizza guys with gold chains, no ice cream bars, and no candy counter. I did see a couple of store clerks that looked like walking tackle boxes what with their multiple body piercings. I saw one clerk who had enough wires, hoops and assorted metal objects sticking out of him that if you hooked him up to a radio you could probably have picked up WLW-AM out of Cincinnati.
But the most disturbing part of the entire mall trip was the volume level that stores think they need to play their music. And whatever happened to Muzak? You remember that don't you? Some call it elevator music. I call it a Kaiser blade. Sorry, went into my Slingblade impression. Anyway the music in department stores is so loud you can't even hear yourself think. Why store management thinks I want to listen to the Pet Shop Boys (gratuitous 80s reference) at 250 decibels is beyond me. I didn't come to the store for a concert. All I want is to find a pair of pants that makes my butt look good.
We finished the shopping and I found a couple of items I actually liked and purchased. I've discovered shopping is like writing a column. I'm always hungry when I get done. In fact, I think I'll get something to eat right now. "Honey, I'm going shopping. Do we have a couple slices of bread I can take with me?"
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