President's Day: A National Celebration of Shopping

I celebrated President's Day the right way. I went to an outlet mall near Seattle with a girl from law school that I have known since highschool. No, she isn't exactly a friend because half the time I am with her I want to pull out my hair, shove cotton balls in my ears and explode my internal organs out of my nose. But, for a shopping spree, I can tolerate anyone.

The fourty minute drive outside Seattle to the outlet store went pretty fast considering I was forced to listen to The Friend's diatribe about how her grandparents prefer her to all the other grandchildren in her family. She was so very proud of this that I didn't have the heart to remind her that her grandparents only had four grandchildren.

It's not that she means to be annoying, I'm sure. I bet the fact that she complains to me (someone with a LEGITIMATE concern about failing law school) about failing law school depsite being on law revieiw and among the top 15% of the class can just be attributed to her lack of social human contact. So can the fact that she says men are only good for being personal slaves. That she has never had a boyfriend in her life (nor kissed a boy- I'd put money on it). Also she goes to Mexican restaurants specifically to order a cheeseburger or chicken nuggets. Oh, and she only eats her burgers plain (no tomotatoes, no lettuce, no pickle, no ketchup!)- that is the signal of a social miscreant if I ever saw one. Enough of my ranting...before I'm sentenced to the fifth circle of Dante's hell.

Once we got to the outlet mall, The Friend immediately dragged me into a Coach store. More than anyother time during my pregnancy, I wanted to puke (not from morning sickness either). I wanted to puke all over those colorful, overpriced bags plastered with the letter "c." (I'm pretty sure I know which episode of Sesame Street the designer watched as a child). I just don't get the whole Coach thing at all. Is it about status? Is it about fitting in? Is it about blowing ridiculous amounts of money on things we don't need? As I was pushed, climbed on and run into by the designer purse hungry mob which overfilled the small store, I was ever so grateful for my own $20 Target purse.

I did wallet damage of my own once I stepped into Gymboree. I couldn't resist. Despite promising my husband I would not buy any babyclothes until we knew the gender, my personal strength was broken by a slew of matching octopus onesies-- with matching pants and hat, of course! Yes, I insisted that they were gender neutral because: since when is blue a color to be worn exclusively by boys? That's ridiculous! Plus watching our baby wear a cute octopus shirt will outweigh any emotional damage our baby girl might suffer from wearing a boys outfit at the age of 3 months.

The highlight of the day was food. I ate my third burger in five days, and it was so juicy and delicious. I think giving in that third time officially ended my cravings for burgers, thankgoodness. The last three days I've wanted to eat nothing but Safeway's General Tsao's chicken.