Friday, September 03, 2004

The Joys of Having Breasts

God damn, is it September already? For eight months I have been whining and moaning about how very boring life without social interaction is, and now that it is finally September and time to head back (well, "back" might be stretching it a bit) to school, all I really want to do is hide under my comforter and wait until summer comes crawling back again. But as September has come anyway, despite my every effort to stop it, I left today to indulge in what is perhaps the most depressing pastime known to man : back to school shopping.

Macy's was completely useless, the only thing I found there was this really preppy girls' school top that my father laughed at for ten years when I pulled it off the rack. He laughed for about ten more when I decided I had to own it, but he bought it anyway, so I rather think I'm the winner. Everything else was hideous; for some reason, 50's clothing has come back. Or at least, it is trying to come back. I cannot take two steps into a department store without woolly business jackets or argyle sweater vests mauling me. But does anyone wear these?? (Except me, who adores argyle, and actually purchased a pair of argyle knee-highs from JCPenny's.)

Moving on. We'd only been at the mall for about twenty minutes before deciding to leave Macy's to its sad retro self. I'm not sure where we were trying to go, maybe to JCPenny's, but there was a cigar shop on the way, and my dad is to tobacco as I am to eyeliner boy. Beeline into the cigar shop.

It was ridiculous, standing in this foul smelling shop while my dad thumbed through ten dollar cigars, trying to tell me that I was insane for thinking cigarette smoke smells better than cigar smoke. Which it does. Surely I am not alone on this. Anyway, we'd only been in the tobacco store for about a minute when some older teenager came in behind us. Now, I confess, I am only a girl, and I did check him out -- briefly. I am not a pig. Well, actually, I am the most superficial person I know, but I noticed that he was wearing a Tommy Hilfiger shirt and wasn't worth my time.

A few minutes later, while I was waiting in line with my father, who was saying loudly "After this, I quit" mainly because he's afraid I'm going to sneak some of his cigars, I heard someone saying behind me, "Excuse me, could you help me out?"

Well I whipped around, and there's the Tommy guy, looking at me as though I might actually have something intelligent to say. After a moment of awkward silence, he decided to explain, "I don't really do this often, could you help me out?" Gesturing at the cases of cigars. Of course, we all know how sophisticated and quick witted I am around guys.

"I... er... what? I have no idea, man... I don't... uh...."

Noticing that I was not speaking in English and that my dad had started to stare at him, he asked quickly, "You work here, don't you?"

"Uh... no." Only this wasn't a polite '0no.' This was the kind of no you say with a snort while conveying in one syllable that you think the person you're talking to is the most moronic human being you have ever had the pleasure of speaking to. Which is rather saying something when coming from someone like me.

When we left the shop, purposely skirting around the poor boy, who really didn't know what he was doing, my dad started cracking up. "That guy was so completely hitting on you!"

"I think he thought I worked at the store, dad."

"Christine. You are fifteen. You are five foot. And he watched you walk into the store with me."

I thought about that for a minute. Then, because my dad is not blessed with telepathy, I had a little party in celebration of me inside my brain. Because my brain cells haven't had much to celebrate about since the goth girl at Shepard Pratt commented as I walked by, "Mm, the new girl's cute." If I'd known at the time that she was a lez, I would've frenched her on the spot. Fortunately for both of us, I didn't.

The rest of the trip wasn't nearly as eventful, mostly depressing, actually, I'm so picky when it comes to clothes and them not being completely hideous. All I ended up buying was one more shirt (bland, black, no one will ever be able to tell it from the ten thousand other ones I own), two pairs of argyle socks and matching leg warmers, and a boy's sweatshirt from Old Navy that would've cost about forty dollars more if I'd bought it at Pac Sun. But my mood overall was fabulous, because every time my dad mentioned the nerve of some guy hitting on his daughter while her father was standing right behind her, my chest swelled with pride.

Because I am a human, unlike every other girl in the world, who seems to think that it is somehow offensive that men want in your pants. And Jesus Christ if I start talking like Kelsey I will drown myself.

Plus, we stopped by Friendly's on the way home, and had some ice cream. I was already full from a pretzel at Auntie Anne's, but this is Friendly's ice cream we're talking about... I used to sit on my bed for hours and just eat their ice cream straight out of the carton while wondering why I wasn't losing weight. So even though I felt like I was going to throw up the whole time, my brain cells were shooting up on endorphin.

I am almost not depressed about school in four days.

christopher @ 11:50 PM