Adventures in shopping for things I hate

I'm in Florida this weekend with Lisa, The Blonde Blogette.

As part of my preparations in the upcoming days, I realized I did not have a swimsuit worthy of Tampa.  And as I had Thursday morning free, I saw it as a lovely opportunity to go forth and procure a new suit that would like be on sale.

I started out at our "mall."  I use that term loosely as it only involves JC Penney's, Old Navy, a nameless fudge shop and something we have here in the South known as Belk.

I went to Penney's as I had seen multiple mentions of online sales, and I assumed at least a small fraction of these would also be in the store.

Upon arriving, I did a lap around the store, looking for that one rack of swimsuits, probably pushed in the back.  After taking the 7 seconds required to walk all the way around our JCP, I realized I might need some direction.

I found the nearest sales associate and approached her, asking for help.

"Excuse me, do you know where I might find the swimsuits?"

The saleswoman led me to the clearance racks.  "Oh, great.  Thanks.  I'll just rifle through these."

I thought out interaction had ended.  I was mistaken.

The saleswoman, who I will refer to as Alma, insisted on being helpful.

"What size are you lookin' for?" Alma asked, as she started moving through the racks on her own.

"Uhhhh, you know, I'll just peruse through some of this here.  Thanks so much." Isn't that the international code phrase for "Piss off."?

"Now, there's a medium bottom over here and a small top on this rack. Wait, no that's a medium top and a large bottom."

"That's great.  I don't think-"

"There used to be a black and white one here, but I don't know where it went.  Maybe someone's trying it on."  I then watched Alma head toward the dressing room, assuming she was going to look on the discard rack.

All of a sudden, I hear her knock on one of the dressing room doors and say, "'Scuse me? Are you tryin' on that black and white bathing suit?"

The woman she'd interrupted in the dressing room hesitantly replied, "Um, yes?"

"Well, when you're done, there's a young lady out here who wants to try it on," Alma informed her.

"...Okay."

The whole time, I'd been staring at the clearance racks, which had all of 2 bathing suits on them.  Both were two-pieces (which I don't do) and both were ugly (which I also don't do).

Suddenly, a woman emerged from the dressing room with a black and white two-piece.  She looked a little irritated as Alma grabbed the black and white bathing suit from her, thrust it toward me and announced, "I knew it was still here!"

I had trouble with words at this point.

"Oh, wow, I don't, um, I really need a one-piece but I'm sorry and thank you so..."

"Oh, well okay..." Alma sort of wandered off into the distance and I took this opportunity to get the hell out of there.

After JCP, I went to Old Navy, Belk and then I even drove to our outlet mall in another town.  At every store, I was told that they'd already gotten rid of most, if not all, of their bathing suits.

Okay, so am I high?  I always thought a Labor Day sale was when stores got rid of their Summer stuff for wicked cheap to make room for the Fall stuff.

I was so frustrated, I got in my car and cried.

Actually, I think that was largely due to the fact that I hadn't had coffee in 36 hours.  I would've sucked the coffee grounds from under a lemur handler's fingernails at that point.