This week, I have engaged in binge shopping. Low end binge shopping, to be sure, but binge shopping nevertheless.

And I can offer another Wal-Mart heads up. They now have very respectable looking cotton and spandex pants in basic colors, and the store I visited had one beige and one black in size "Petite: 4-6," which I purchased and they fit so well you would almost think I had a butt. They cost about 9-10 dollars, and should have a label that says "compare to Lands' End knit pants at $40."

I also learned that Wal-Mart has some "not available in stores" items on their website. One of the things they had is a pair of Lee twill pants in dark brown, in size 6 petite, which I bought. The shipping was very cheap, they were having a special on shipping or something, so the total cost of the pants, shipping and all, was $20.

But wait there's more from Evil Wal-Mart! I was also able to find basic t-shirts in black, brown and beige for about $7 each. These are the "fitted" kind made of cotton with a bit of spandex, and in colder climates they would probably be called "layering tees."

We in the warm lands call them "accessorizing tees," meaning that you can accessorize them with whatever flavor of bling your spirit guide dictates, thus converting them into anything from a "professional tee" to an "evening tee," depending on just what mood your spirit guide was in, or you can not accessorize them at all, in which case they become either "going to the grocery store tees" or "not going to the grocery store and ordering pizza instead tees."

The rest of my shopping binge consisted of online purchases.

It is all ryverrat's fault.

She made some casual mention of a store I had never heard of, called boscov's, so just out of curiosity I visited their website, and lo and behold, they had cheap basic tees and I believe, even a pant or two. And so I was off on the binge, from low end store to low end store, buying cheap basics as if there were no tomorrow.

And yes, there was something of an advantage given to tone on tone embroidery, I am partial to that, as well as v-necks, and clearance, so those merchants who put their tone on tone embroidered v necks on clearance received especial favor.

Oh, but which ones? You are probably gasping eagerly, and I am ashamed to say that I hit so many stores, I cannot remember which ones had what, and I would have to go into my email and call up the little order confirmation things to tell you. I went to Tar-zhay and Jacques Pen-nay and Goodys and the boscov's place and Wal-Mart, and a couple of others I can't remember now, but they were cheap.

In my defense, Amazon will now search and let you buy from a squillion stores with your Amazon account, and take advantage of their free shipping feature, which is not hard to achieve at all, $25 or something, like Tar-zhay. So there were some stores in there that I never heard of, but if they had those embroidered v-neck combination Prestigious Function/Pizza Ordering tees for cheap, well...

And then the shoes! When I went to the brick & mortar to buy new "athletic" shoes, I thought that I might also buy some Keds*, but they only had white leather ones, and I have far too much respect for the medical profession to walk arounnd unauthorizedly wearing their footwear without a license. Where, I demanded to know, were the rainbow of Keds colors of yesteryear? "They used to make them things in colors?" the adolescent footwear expert responded knowledgably.

When the going gets tough, the tough get clicking, and I was soon able to find, not only Keds of many colors, but that archetype of '60s canvas oxford sophistication, the Grasshopper. And a special! Two pairs for $50! Where else but grasshoppers.com!

Destiny had come calling, and I answered the door.

But what about my colored Keds? Didn't I indicate that I really wanted some Keds?

I did, and gentle reader, I found, not only Keds in colors, but (at this point I would suggest that you sit down and breathe deep) red bandana print Keds. No, that is not a typo.

Red bandana print Keds. $19.88, or one of those Business School terms for twenty dollars. And they are available at shoemall.com, an establishment whose policy on shipping costs is that theirs are $00.00. My kind of online merchant!

So at least for now, my desire for Keds in colors has been diverted into hopping anticipation of the arrival of my red bandana print Keds, which I have decided are the New Black Pump. If brown can be the New Black, then red bandana print Keds can, and if you listen to your heart's honsest leap, should, and now are, the New Black Pump.

Please show restraint, and do not all swamp the shoemall website at once. Let's do it by birth month. Those born from Jan-March, well, you are already there. April-May, wait 15 minutes, etc etc. I understand that no one here wants to be caught without the New Black Pump, but we can't forget courtesy, and I'm sure they have plenty of pairs for everyone.



(For anyone who is still reading and by some miracle is unaware of the backstory here, I am five full feet and a hearty fraction over two inches tall, recently lost 55 pounds, and as a result, all the clothes I owned had begun to reject my body, falling immediately to the floor upon application. I had found one pair of jeans and one pair of twill "pull on" pants at Wal-Mart, and a couple of tops, and as fine and basic as those items are, and as much as I enjoy wearing them, I really really needed to enjoy wearing some other things too. But the shoes? you ask. And well you should, if you, like me until recently, do not know that when you lose weight, you lose foot size. When I realized that not only did my nearly new New Balances suddenly develop a LOT more "toe wiggle room" than any shoes I had ever owned, but that I also no longer needed to untie them in order to remove them, a light bulb appeared over my head, just like in the funny papers, and when I went to the shoe store, I discovered that depending on brand, I had indeed lost from 1 to 1 and a half sizes.)

*More backstory, or backstory of the backstory. Weight loss occurred after being diagnosed with diabetes and complications, and subsequent dietary changes. "Complications" in this case means peripheral neuropathy, which in my case means Keds instead of kitten heels.

quote:

Destiny had come calling, and I answered the door.

Shimmapuff! You had me on the edge of my seat, my heart was palpitating, I was expecting Rhett, or at least Heathcliff, and then you started talking about KEDS! Your post reminds me of a certain TV show, which although entitled S*x and the City, actually appeared to be about shoes!

Seriously, you go girl! Your binge was well-earned after your weight loss. You have encouraged me. I dropped a size, and bought a skirt at the Evil store (really cute, a combination of linen and cotton gauze). But I took it back, because I want to drop another size before I go shopping!
Enjoy your b**ty (loot).

Breathe, woman, breathe! You're going to be just fine.

Absolutely hilarious. You should be a writer with your flare for words. I may even drop by a walmart one of these days.

With your penchant for online deals, I'm surprised you aren't a fellow e-bay shopper. It is a cornucopia of deals and steals.

shimma, it's great, and very funny. I can rack up a bigger bill in Wal-Mart or the low-end stores than in the fancier places, because 'it's such a steal!'

Where do you live (general, not specifics) where there's a Boscov's? I haven't thought about Boscov's in over a decade, since I lived in Delaware. But we had them in Binghamton, too.

Thank you all for the compliments!

cathlib, I live in the Southeastern US, and had never heard of boscov's. I believe it is in that part of the world that many here refer to as "up nawth." But the internet has rendered geography irrelevant. No matter where they may be, if they have a website, and they have bargains, they have me.

Oh cheryleb99, do not fear. eBay did not escape my binging mousefinger. I can't remember what I bought there exactly, but it was something. Maybe two or three somethings.

I think the most dangerous and intriguing purchase I made was a Lilyette Minimizer. Unlike Star Jones, I do not have the option of addressing surgically the inevitable bosomial sequelae of weight loss. For a variey of reasons, any of which could be a whole standalone rant, I decided to purchase that particular brand, and we will see. I wonder if I got that on eBay. If not, it was somewhere where it was 50% or more off the usual price, I could not have afforded it otherwise. As if I could afford any of this stuff.

I don't recall ever engaging in such a shopping binge before, certainly not with such complete disregard for fiscal prudence.

When it is all added up, I probably spent close to $300, maybe more.

However, had I gone to department stores and boutiques and bought the exact same things, my spending would have approached the WNTW fantasy Visa realm. And even though obviously all the online stuff was bought sight unseen, in over half a century, I have learned that no matter what anybody tells you, there is very little difference in a black cotton t-shirt bought at Wal-Mart, from the Penney's website, or at a chic boutique in an upscale gentrified trendy shopping area of a major city - other than price.

Such items are frequently made by the same factories, and different labels added, depending on which retailers the buyer will be delivering them to. Occasionally there may be a little detail or other, maybe the boutique one will have satin piping - and so will the low or midrange store that buys the rest of the satin piping lot, which may mean that you, the consumer will have to spend up to thirty additional minutes of clicking in order to locate a black t-shirt with such piping for $7.99 as opposed to $124.99.

To be sure, 'twas not ever thus. There was a time when "get what you pay for" referred not only to the psychological benefit, if any, from purchasing one's black tshirt from the foo foo boutique.

There was a time when the foo foo boutique's shirt would be manufactured from cotton grown in a field, spun into thread, knitted into cloth, laid to pattern, cut, stitched, and finished, and every step of that process would occur in different facilities, by different methods and different people from the shirt found in the low end store on the other side of the apparel industry tracks.

And not only the extremes of the scale, the same differences would apply to a shirt from Macy's (nee Davison's) versus a shirt from Penney's.

Today, however, unless one is prepared to deal directly with everything from cotton growers to sellers of raw fiber to an artist who will stitch the garment not only to your measurements, but to your specifications regarding cloth origin, spinning and weaving method and thread count, or, alternatively, visit a couture house and become acquainted with someone there who will do all that for you, you are purchasing mass produced clothing sewn from mass produced fabric, and the differences between one and the other reside largely in your head and in your pocketbook as opposed to in the garment.