Shopping

On Sunday, I ventured to the mall. I hate the mall and I never go, but right on schedule my face has turned into hamburger with angry red zits all over my chin and those horrible, big, giant ones that hurt to touch. I am one ugly pregnant woman--I don't know where all this glowing business comes from. Not from me, that's for sure. So, anyway, I needed to hit the Proactiv kiosk and drop 50 bucks on face soap. Yikes, but it works, so what are you gonna do?

On my way out of the mall I walked by the Motherhood store, and just stood there for a minute and debated whether to go in or not. Nate was a winter baby, so all of my maternity clothes are jeans and wooly things. It's already 80 degrees here and the lure of cute, short-sleeved tops took me into the store. I picked out a top and some khaki capris and went to checkout. Which went like this:

Girl at the Counter: "Have you been here before?"
Me: "Yeah." And I give her my name after she asks.
Girl: "When is your due date?" Her fingers were poised over the keyboard, ready to imput this information.
Me: I don't tell her. "Umm, am I going to be getting any mailings or anything like that?"
Girl: "Well, yes. Don't you want any?"
Me: "No, I don't." And I could have stopped there, but I didn't.
Me: "I don't want any because they are extremely upsetting when something goes wrong."
Girl: "Oh, absolutely, I'm sorry."
And here again, could have stopped, didn't.
Me: "You know, getting Pampers coupons that say 'Valuble Coupons for your 12 month old!!' is just pretty crushing, really." (As far as Pampers is concerned, my son is happily toddling around soiling diapers with wild abandon. I'm using cloth diapers next time. Any company that makes me cry isn't getting my business. And they've all made me cry over the past year.)

The girl makes some hasty strikes at her keyboard. "Okay,"she says, "you shouldn't be receiving any more mailings." She hands me my bag with a sympathetic smile. I'm red in the face and embarassed over what I had just said, and I knew that other customers heard my rant. "Sorry I was so neurotic about that," I said as I took my purchases from her. I walked out of the store with my head down, realizing at that point that I really should just do my shopping off the internet. Either things aren't easy like they used to be, or I'm just making things hard for myself. I'm inclined to think it's the latter.