Shopping is one of my favourite things to do. There’s a certain thrill that comes with trying things on, finding things that look good even though I would have never thought they would, and expanding my wardrobe, low storage capacity for clothes in my room be damned. I could shop forever. Even when I think I have enough clothes, I go out and find something else I want. However, there’s always one thing that puts a damper on the activity for me: the nations of the world have yet to band together to decide that I should have an unlimited stash of money for virtue of being awesome. Basically, I’m not rich and as much as I want to own 1000 dresses so I could wear one every day with no repeats, parting with money is painful to me, especially on a limited budget such as mine.
So, to me, a good sale is like a gift from a kind deity, and the one I shall write about presently sprang up like a lovely, unexpected daisy during a pilgrimage I’d undertaken with my roommate to Metrotown in hopes of catching Disney-Pixar’s Brave and eating frozen yogurt. Shopping was nowhere on the itinerary, at least not until we passed Bluenotes and noticed that they were having a sale in honour of their moving locations. They’d done a fantastic job advertising the fact: the sign was nice and big, and the store was plastered with banners telling of how everything has to go and that helping them with that goal would cost you ten dollars or less per item. Shining beacon of light if there ever was one. I’ve liked shopping there for the greater part of my recent history, so I was all for taking advantage of what the shiny sign was offering. How could I possibly resist?
There were two things that made my shopping experience a little less than perfect, though not enough to really put a damper on the whole thing. The first took me back to a time in Colombia, when I heard my mom and, I think, my aunt talking about a store in Colombia we’d gone shopping at. They were talking about how they saw the store as belonging to the young; it wasn’t a place they thought they could go to find things that would suit them anymore. Now, I made off with an outfit, so it wasn’t like I found nothing I liked, but looking around at the clothes on display right after entering the store I thought “wow, this place is so… geared towards teenagers.” I think that’s why I was mostly drawn there when I was slightly younger than I am now; I loved the graphic tees featuring cartoons and the style. I’m not trying to say that no one over 19 should want to buy graphic tees and such, but to me going to the store this time made me feel for the first time, since I stopped wanting imitation punk fare, that I was outgrowing a certain fashion, that my tastes were evolving away from something I used to love. It was a reflective moment for me. And then I started spotting items I wanted and stopped feeling so old.
The second had more to do with the expectation I got in my mind when I saw the advertisement for the sale. For this expedition, I had a budget of $25 dollars, which I somehow thought would amount to a mountain of clothes for me when all was said and done. It was $10 or less! I expected there to be a lot of items that leaned more to the ‘or less’ side in terms of pricing. Well… that wasn’t exactly how it panned out. Of course, most of the items I was drawn to were exactly $10, which would add up quickly with my budget in mind. Still, I did pretty well for myself in the end and $10 for a pair of jeans, for instance, is a pretty good bargain considering what I normally see while shopping.
Happily, I did manage to make out with a brand new outfit, and… I will now proceed to regale you with near-incoherent gushing about how very happy I am. You see, I got this top. It’s a bit see-through, but there are ways to get around that, which my budget accounted for. It has the most dramatic sleeves out of anything in my closet. They are so poofy, and yet so delicate. It was love at first sight. And these shorts. Wow. They’re a bit on the short side, as they would be, but they’re done up by buttons. Just buttons, no zipper to be found! I have never owned a pair like this and… well, I also didn’t have a pair of shorts in denim until the day I encountered this one. Lord, the buttons, though! Absolutely mesmerizing. And… well I got a white tank because I didn’t own one that wasn’t covered in lace. It was my more practical purchase.
All of this came to… $26.88 after taxes. So a little bit over budget, in the end. Still. My new clothes are just so cute.
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