I Hate Shopping...

I hate shopping.
Oh my God, do I ever hate shopping.
I just hate it.
Something disastrous always happens.
I am writing this from an actual Mall… in the Foodcourt, just after a disaster.
In about a month’s time I have to be the MC at my niece Amy’s wedding.
So I figure it’s about time I got a new suit. As in, a suit!

Do you have any idea how much I do not want to buy a new suit?
Well, at any rate, today’s the day!
So I put on some dress pants and shoes, and I came here to the St. Laurent Mall. When I shop for nice clothes, I like to arrive in some half-decent clothes, you know? [Perfectly beautiful hot day outside, and here I am in a Mall, spiffed out like a Mormon Missionary!]
To make a long story shorter, I ended up with a terrific looking Calvin Klein suit at half price, which means I still paid 400 clams!
But from the moment I tried the thing on, I knew it was mine… like, for the first time in my life, a suit fit me perfectly, right off the rack. The only alteration needed is to hem the pants.
Apparently, I am a textbook 42-short!

Always the skeptic though, I didn’t trust that it was legitimately “on sale” so I told the guy I would be back and then I walked through the Mall and did some comparative shopping!
Found the same suit at a different store at full price!
Needless to say, I went back to the original store and Bob’s your uncle!

So, after this, I thought I would do some… lighter shopping.
Went upstairs and found myself at Sports Experts, where, among other things, one of these logo-ized sports T-shirts caught my eye! See… this wedding is taking place on Vancouver Island in August, and so, when I saw a blue Vancouver Canucks NHL hockey T-shirt… complete with the word “Luongo” stenciled on the back [he is the goaltender] and the big #1 [his number]… I had to get it.
You know?
When in Rome wear what the Romans where… yadda yadda.

Well….. by now I was hungry. And the Food Court is like RIGHT THERE…. all the neon signage beckoning me hitherward, the force is literally irresistable.
But first, before lining up at Jimmy The Greek’s for some chicken souvlaki, I felt the urge to urinate.
I went to the public washroom.
So, the bag of clothes clenched in my armpit, there I was facing the urinal, and like… do I need to give more detail, really? Shook the dew off the lily.
Then I went to pull up the ol’ zipper.
Umm… there is no zipper!
What?
After tucking away the Pony Express© I am standing there, staring down, and there is NO ZIPPER deal on the zipper of my pants. [Are you listening?]...
So now I am searching for it in the urinal basin. Maybe it went through one of the holes in the drainage grate? Or it is still sort of floating around in there? Within those first few seconds it dawned on me that even if the damn thing was in there…. it was going to STAY in there. Like… I don’t want it anymore.
But meanwhile, the door to the O.K. Corral© is WIDE OPEN!
And not just a little bit, I mean wide open, dammit!
What in the hell am I going to do? I can’t walk around in the Mall like this!
So I went into a toilet stall and locked the door.

I figured at least here I could do some thinking, not to mention a more thorough search.
And sure enough, the part of the zipper that you move up and down? It was there at the toppermost part of the tines… and how it even got there I do not know!
I started fumbling about, leaning on the stall door, trying to hook that damn thing into the other innocent-looking row of zipper-teeth. I tried and tried until sweat was beading on my forehead, honest to God.
I only stopped thrashing about when I realized that if I went any further with this project I might actually somehow turn INTO Mr. Bean!
My God!
So…. I figured I would just wear my nice dress shirt over top of my pants, rather than tucked in. At least make it out of the Mall that way without getting arrested. I opened the stall-door and looked over at the wall-length mirror. Nope. The shirt is too short. I’m revealing way too much pasture-land south of the equator!
So I had no choice.
I opened my Sports Experts bag and threw on my new extra-large Vancouver Canucks T-shirt.
I looked in the mirror again.
Bingo!
I’m covered. ‘Specially if I slouch a bit.
But I look like a complete DORK!
Always one to wallow in my humiliations and drink them to the dregs, instead of running out of here I not only had my chicken souvlaki at Jimmy The Greek’s, but afterward, I got a coffee at Tim Horton’s and fired up my laptop. And here I sit, even now, in the cool breezes and wide open spaces, of the St. Laurent Foodcourt.
GO CANUCKS GO!

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