How I Became THAT Girl

I am not a pink and pretty, pampered and pedicured, foo-foo girl. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It just seems out of my reach. Except for the pink part. I make pink look fierce.

I'm just not that girl.

Nor am I a fix-a-flat, hawk-n-spit, tomboy-girl. I have enough trouble putting my old, hand-crank pencil sharpener back together, and I always forget to spit with the wind, not agin' it.

I'm not that girl, either.

That said, I'm no stranger to hiking in the woods, playing in the mud, or sweating (if need be). I would just prefer to be wearing a color-coordinated outfit and appropriate footwear while doing it.

So why was I hiking along the muddy banks of the Minnehaha Creek in downtown Minneapolis, wearing fitted, white capris, a swingy, trapeze tank top, and strappy, wedge heels?

I'm not that girl.

What can I say? Assumptions were made. Lessons were learned.

It all started with the prospect of a Girl's Weekend Out. It all started with the promise of shopping, and a fancy dinner, and a Very Special Birthday celebration for a Very Special Friend.

Let me point out that there usually is no difference between my “goin' to the mall” outfit and my “goin' to the woods” outfit -- or my “settin' on the couch” outfit, for that matter. My go-to, “goin' to” outfit usually consists of jeans or jean shorts, a t-shirt, and running shoes. The stores where I usually shop end with “-Mart.” My idea of fine dining is anything I don't order from my car.

Still, we were headin' to the Big City. We were headin' to The Big Mall, yes, that one, America. And we were helping a friend celebrate a Big Birthday (the latest to join the “Who's Counting” club). I didn't want to look like I just fell off the turnip truck.

My travelin' partner-in-crime always looks effortlessly put together. And the birthday girl always looks perky and classy. I always look like I just fell off the turnip truck.

But this was a Girl's Weekend. A Girl's Weekend with four women traveling in one car with one small hatchback for luggage and shopping bags. I did NOT want to be that girl. The one with a pile of luggage and different shoes for each outfit. So I packed light. Extremely light. As in one-outfit-per day light. I brought just two pairs of shoes, chosen for fashion, not function.

Prior to this excursion, during this month alone, I have hiked muddy trails through overgrown woods, explored caves, waded through creeks, zoomed down a mountain (ok, a hill) on an alpine slide, struggled to keep up with some serious Fitbit fanatics, and participated in a mini-triathalon. There is a better than average chance that I have, at one time or another, made fun of women (and men) wearing inappropriate footwear or clothing during these activities. (Seriously, hiking in dollar store flip flops?)

And yet there I was, one martini glass shy of looking like an extra in Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, picking my way around tree roots, trying not to slide down the steep declines and shuffling across the sandy sandbar.

I had become that girl.

My mantra became “Don't slip, don't sweat, don't swear out loud.” Because the only thing worse than being that girl, is being that whiny girl.

The good news is no ankles were turned, no shoes were ruined, no bodies needed to be hidden. No one wound up wearing an orange jumpsuit.

Although if I do wind up in an orange jumpsuit some day, I have the perfect pair of strappy wedges to wear with it.

Shorts Shopping Short Shrift

After fourteen years on this earth, The Little Prince has decided to wear shorts.

When he was a baby I could dress him in whatever I wanted, but as soon as he was able to stomp his little foot and open the dresser drawer by himself, he declared a moratorium on shorts. In the grand scheme of things this non-shorts stance was not a problem. As long as he wore something on the bottom part of his torso I was happy.

In the mom scheme of things this non-shorts stance was a problem. You see, I am the therMOMeter. If I am cold, the children should put on sweatshirts. If I am hot, they should wear shorts.

They, however, have a different view of things. I carry a sweatshirt with me on even the hottest, most humid days Iowa can conjure up in July and August. They will consent to putting a sweatshirt in the car when we head out in the middle of a January blizzard.

So when The Little Prince announced he wanted to wear shorts, I nearly tore the door off the hinges in my haste to get him to the mall before he changed his mind. We returned victorious after a no-frills, fast break offense shopping trip: one store, two shoppers, three pairs of shorts.

I was not quite as excited a week later when he announced that he needed more shorts because two of the three pair (already de-tagged and washed) didn't fit.

I swear he tried them all on at the store, but I was so thrilled he was even considering shorts that I might have been hallucinating. There is also a chance that he was tired of trying on clothes and, having found one pair in a size that fit, assumed that any pair in that size would fit. A seasoned veteran knows that even two identical items of clothing – the same size, brand, style, and color – will not necessarily both fit. Only the clothing manufacturers that control that particular ring of hell could tell you why.

Shopping Trip #2: We found ourselves back at the same store, looking for the same shorts, different size. The level of enthusiasm was not quite as high this time.

“The shorts that didn't fit, I'm assuming they were too big?” I asked as we wandered around looking for the racks and racks of shorts that were there just a week earlier.

“Eh.”

“So, what was wrong with them?”

“There's too much fabric,” he said.

“So, they're too big,” I spoke slowly and clearly, because obviously he did not understand me the first time.

He shrugged.

I decided to try a new approach.

“When you put them on, can you hold the waistband out away from yourself like this?” I demonstrated pulling on my own shorts. “And is there enough room to fit another person in there?”

“Mo-om,” he said, rolling his eyes the way his sister taught him.

Despite his utter lack of help, I finally found a variety of sizes for him to try on.

“Those have too much fabric,” he said, pointing at the wide legs on one pair. Ah ha! Too much fabric! Now we were getting somewhere. Maybe.

“Well, they are cargo pants... with cargo pockets... just like the ones you have on,” I said, gritting my teeth.

He shrugged.

I put that pair back.

“And those are too short,” he said, pointing at another pair.

“You haven't tried them on. How can you tell they're too short?” I asked.

“The tag says 'above the knee',” he said.

“But they're....” I compared them to the pair he had on, which were exactly the same length.

He shrugged. Back on the rack they went.

That left two pair for him to try on. They both fit nicely, I thought. But he looked miserable.

“Do you think they fit?” I asked.

“I guess.”

“Do you like them?”

“Eh.”

“Will you wear them?”

“No.”

“Then don't get them!” I growled, admitting defeat and wondering how much alcohol I could buy with the money we weren't spending on shorts.

“We could move to Canada,” he suggested, a smile brightening his face. “Then I wouldn't have to worry about shorts!” I'm not sure that reasoning is sound, but I seriously considered it for a moment.

We returned empty handed from that trip, but I had a plan: next time we would take The Princess with us. For some unknown, sibling-only reasoning, he will take fashion advice from her (probably because she lovingly threatens to “end him” if she doesn't like what he's wearing).

Shopping Trip #3: I turned the two of them loose in Young Men's and followed at a discreet distance. That is, until I heard peals of laughter. They were looking at everything except what they were supposed to be looking for, and The Princess had picked out two t-shirts – from the Young Men's sale rack – that she assured me she could not live without. When I reminded them of their assigned task, she tossed one pair of shorts at him and took off for the Junior Girl's section.

After much searching and bullying on my part, The Prince selected cargo shorts in dark grey, light black, and charcoal. Identical to the pair he had on.

As I waited outside the dressing room I realized that, this being August in Iowa, shorts-wearing weather will be drawing to a close soon and we'll have to head back out to buy long pants.

Or I could move him to Mexico. Then he wouldn't have to worry about long pants.

Frock You

By the time you read this, WBHS Homecoming 2014 will be just a memory.

By the time I recover from dress shopping for WBHS Homecoming 2014 it will be time for WBHS Homecoming 2015.

And The Princess will be shopping without me. It's safer for everyone that way.

Teenage girls are proficient pack shoppers – provided it is within a pack of their peers. Introduce an adult figure and the thrill of the hunt and ultimately the bagging of big game suffers. Ironic, considering it is usually the adult who controls the funds.

I remember going to the mall with my friends. No one else will be as brutally honest about the clothes you try on – certainly not someone whose commission depends upon the purchase. (“Yes. That does make your butt look like you could show a double feature on it.”) Your mother just doesn't share your sense of style, finely honed as it was/is by Seventeen or Pintrest. And only another teen could hit the food court with equal gusto. (“Fro-yo and a diet soda will totally not make your butt any bigger.”)

Unfortunately the pack-hunt mentality broke down this time. Probably because The Princess does not like to shop. (I know! Right? I think she was switched at birth.) Believe me, there is nothing more un-fun than high-pressure shopping (absolutely, positively, gotta have it) with someone who doesn't like to shop. And this was a high-pressure situation. There was just a week before the big dance, and every weeknight was filled with Homecoming Week activities.

To keep the mood light, I decided to treat this as a learning opportunity and a chance for mother-daughter bonding, rather than a buy-or-die situation. What I learned is that The Princess and I have totally different approaches to shopping, and that shopping for a Homecoming dress has changed a lot since back in the day.

How things have changed #1

Back in the day we shopped for a “homecoming outfit;” typically a wool-plaid or corduroy skirt and a sweater with bat-wings or a cowl neck. I'm not sayin' they were good fashion choices, but they were practical – warm, full coverage, and you could wear them again.  (There is photographic evidence... which will not be shared.)

And the whole thing cost less than a car payment.

The current Eastern Iowa girls' Homecoming attire trend  is a fancy party dress: the shorter, the tighter, the sparklier, the better. And only good for one wearing. You don't even want to think about the per-hour cost.

How things have changed #2

These days the pack hunters don't have to actually hunt as a pack. Thanks to cell phones, Twit-a-gram and the such, they can spread out and hit many more stores in the same amount of time.

“Why don't we check out X store,” I'd suggest. The Princess' thumbs would fly across the screen of her phone and she'd report haughtily “Randi was just there. They don't have anything.”

Once potential dresses were located, The Princess' modus operandi was simple: Grab as many as you can – without looking at the size – and sort them out in the dressing room. But it took her Fore. Ev. Er. to try them on. At first I thought she was having trouble with the zippers. Then I realized that she had to photograph and Snap-Twit pics of each dress to her pals for an instant opinion.

Did Mom get to see any of them?

No.

Not until the very end, when it was crunch time and the stores were ready to close... when I was seriously considering buying the outrageously expensive (but gorgeous) dress, just to end the pain and misery. (Mine. Not hers.)

One thing hasn't changed: The Mom Kiss of Death.

At one store which had a plethora of fancy dresses (it looked like the sequin factory had exploded) I watched a Happy Mother-Daughter Combo enter. Obviously they had just started their shopping trip as they were still smiling, walking side-by-side and talking to each other. They stopped to browse at the front and center display (designed to capture your attention and build expectations, only to brutally shoot them down later). Daughter seemed taken by one particularly fluffy frock, going so far as to touch the ruffles and check the size before moving on.

Mom then approached the dress, took a surreptitious look at the (reasonable) price tag and said “This one's cute.”

You could hear a collective intake of breath as all the other Moms in the store turned as one, a look of shock and horror on our faces. We mouthed a silent, low motion warning: “Nooooooooooooooooo.”

Time stood still. Daughter turned around gave the dress one more look, wrinkled her nose and said “Eh” before stalking off.

Number one rule of the hunt for Moms: Never appear too interested in the quarry.

Number one rule of the hunt for Daughters: Enforce Mom's rule Number One.

Need I point out that the dress The Princess finally bought (rather, I bought) was the same one we saw at the first store, four hours, countless stores and two cities before it was actually purchased?

And it looked beautiful on her.

If the Shoe Fits

Some people just don't like to shop. Maybe it's the pushy crowds, the clueless clerks, or the idiots in the parking lots. Me, I've never noticed those things. I'm all sweetness and light when I shop, naturally. But there is one thing eclipses my sunshine: shoe shopping.

I have no problem admitting my age -- 39. Alright, 39 and a half. I can admit that my "greylights" are courtesy of Mother Nature and not L'Oreal. But for most of my 4... I mean 38 and a half years, I've been reluctant to tell anyone just how big (size-enhanced) my feet are.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I have feet. I like my feet. They work just fine. They allow me to stand upright and provide balance in a strong wind. They add valuable inches of height when I stand tippie-toes. But when I go shoe shopping, they just get in the way.

There's nothing wrong with my feet. It's those arbitrary numbers they assign to shoe sizes that bother me.

It is nearly impossible to find shoes in my size. After years of contemplation, I have come up with three possible reasons: 1. Manufacturers only make five pair of shoes in this size for distribution throughout the entire country. 2. Someone (with a really big closet) is hoarding all the shoes in my size. 3. Drag Queens beat me to them. It doesn't really make me feel better to think that I could be wearing the same shoe as Patrick Swayze did in "To Wong Fu."

Several young girls the Little Princess' age already wear size nine. And they're not done growing yet! I am torn. There's a part of me that feels sorry for them, knowing they are facing a future of meager shoe pickin's. But mostly I'm just worried that they will mean added competition for a limited number of generous-sized shoes. I have seniority! I deserve the cute shoes!

Online shoe shopping is just not the same. All too often I've drooled over a cute pair of shoes on display at a store, only to puke when I look down and see them on my feet. I want them off my feet and out of my life NOW! Not after I've repackaged and hauled them to the post office. I'm all about the instant gratification.

One of my (many) ideas for building my hometown's business and tourism base is to open a shoe store. Not just any shoe store, but a SHOE store, catering to size-enhanced feet. Not just any shoe store, but a shoe STORE! Offering a unique shopping experience for a marginalized demographic who, far too often, wind up impaled on the pointy end of a stiletto heel when it comes to cute shoe choices.

The front room of my store would be modest, but cozy. A wide array of shoes styles would be attractively displayed -- no boxes up front! The shoe store equivalent of a maitre d' would welcome customers, politely answer questions and show them around. He would also be responsible for ascertaining the actual shoe size of the customer.

This is vital, because only shoppers with size 10 -- maybe nine -- or larger feet would be allowed to advance through the velvet curtain, past the security system/Brannock Device, to the back room. The inner sanctum, as it were. All you elfin-footed girls would have to sit out front on semi-comfortable chairs to wait for your full-footed friends.

The back room would be a shoe shoppin' Shangri La! Foot-fortunate females would be treated to champaign fountains, trays of gourmet chocolates and plush couches -- complimentary foot rubs optional. The sales associates would all be hotty-hot-hotties dressed in crisp, white shirts and dark, pin-stripped suits with skinny ties (Why yes, I have been watching "White Collar" on USA). All customers would be addressed as Miss, not Ma'm, and breath mints would be used at all times.

And the shoes! Oh yes, the shoes would be awesome! Not a pixie-sized pair to be found! Top designers would create styles especially for the grander sizes. We'd put an end to those shoes that look cute in itsy-bitsy sizes, but in the upper size range look more like clown shoes. We would turn the current trend of shoe size discrimination on its head by not even manufacturing these adorable shoes in sizes smaller than a 10-- maybe a nine.

Yes, I am a little bitter about not being able to find shoes in my size. And no, I'm not a big enough person to "just let it go." That's why I'm considering adding a closed-circuit tv that would allow the miniature-footed to see what they were missing out on while they sit on semi-comfortable chairs, drinking tap water and munching on generic, candy-coated chocolate drops.

Because in this case, size does matter.