The Walking Dead

One day I turned to Sebastien and suggested we get him a wedding band. (If I have to wear a ring than so does he.) He suggested that we make out wills instead. It happened to be a Sunday afternoon, prime time shopping for aggressive New Yorkers and tourists. I don’t like shopping in general because I don’t like being around people. When I need to buy something, I usually do it online. Or I will just sit around and fill up a virtual shopping cart with items, only to leave the site once I lose interest.

The thought of entering a store on the weekend was making us both queasy so we decided to think about our own deaths instead. Just another relaxing Sunday.

 

Bag of Tricks

I carry a moderately sized purse that can hold a book, a selection of magazines, two notepads, a handful of pens and an assortment of gum. My shoulders are permanently lopsided, but at least I don’t look like a jackass walking around with multiple small purses. (I see it everyday on the subway.)

I’ve never understood small purses and I am always amazed when women show up to parties with them. Especially in New York City where you need to take public transportation to get anywhere. What do these women usually do during the travel time? It’s hard enough to get me to leave the house, so I can’t imagine going anywhere without a variety of things to keep me entertained before during and after the event to which I am traveling. You never know when you are going to get bored.

I met a group of friends at a bar one night at the insistence of this guy I know. I don’t go out to bars much because I usually get bored and I’m a low talker so it makes for strained conversations. I told this guy as much but he persisted.So I agreed to show up.

When he arrived, he found me sitting at a table. “So where’s your magazine,” he said. I pulled it out right after he finished the sentence.

I’m sure a number of women will come to the wedding with dainty shoulder purses that can hold a tin of altoids and a packet of birth control, if anything at all. I reserved the seat next to me for my purse, which will contain a panoply of items to keep me busy if and when conversations lag.

The Best Uneventful Event of the Year

I bought my wedding dress a few weeks ago. The transaction took all but five minutes. It was incredibly uneventful and thus fulfilling. It was the first time I successfully made an online purchase of clothing. At my old job I would spend a few hours a week just browsing department store websites and add random articles of clothing to my virtual shopping bag only to close the window when it was time for my three-hour lunch break or online courses of German, Japanese or Spanish. The job was excruciatingly boring so I took the opportunity to indulge in various hobbies. Online shopping was one of them. But I always left the websites before making a purchase because I was never confident that the clothing would fit well or be exactly what I wanted.

My last venture into online shopping was on a website that supposedly catered to body shapes. After an evening of figuring out the measurements of various parts of my body, I typed the numbers into the website form so the site could recommend clothes. One day when I was at work adding random things to my shopping cart, I noticed a pair of black jeans the site thought would look good on me. When I was picking out a size, though, it suggested size 10. At the time I thought the pants ran incredibly small, but now I know the company just wanted to get rid of its last pair in stock. And the company guessed right when they assumed I would be too lazy to return them.

I had to borrow Sebastien’s belt the few times I wore the jeans to keep them from falling to my knees whenever I walked. I looked like an anorexic who didn’t know how to spend the money she was saving by not eating on better fitting clothes to flatter her shrinking frame. I eventually started to use the pants as a last resort rag for excess spills and the website was shut down.

Another time I wanted to replace my favorite pair of brown boots. They were my favorite because whenever I wore them I could see the envy on the faces of other women as they passed me on the street. I spent years browsing stores and websites to find the perfect pair until I found comparable ones online. The display picture was spot on with what I was looking for. Now whenever I wear them I look like a fucking cowboy.

As much as I preferred the lack of human interaction, I didn’t think the online shopping world was for me. But I knew I had to try it to find a dress for this wedding. I just couldn’t deal with walking into stores so overweight, middle-aged women wearing too much makeup could nudge me towards white, balloon-shaped wedding gowns with peacock feathers coming out of the ass.

My online purchase arrived a few days later and cost less $80. It was truly the best uneventful event of the year.