Have credit card - will slice you

Shopping. Ohhhhhhhh, shopping. How I love thee.

Shopping. Ohhhhhhhh, shopping. How I hate thee and make me want to claw at my own eyes and purge the moldy carrot stick I ate for lunch and take a blow torch and burn down an entire indoor mall and all of its contents and mock snotty sales girls as I watch them cry salty tears while their Louis Vuitton handbags go up in flames and all of their size minus-5 jeans smolder into a melted, lycra lump and write a scathing letter to the clothing designers who are clearly smoking meth when they designed the putrid poo they have the nerve to call fashion and hunt down and find the marketing genius's who decide to make it nearly impossible to find one fucking shirt to wear to one teeny tiny fucking sushi party this weekend without having to tear apart rack after rack throwing clothing onto the ratty stained floor because I have to have the arms of an octopus, the dexterity of a safe cracker and the eyes of a god damn microscope to find my fucking size!!

I decided to go the mall last night because it had been awhile. And even though I love my Target, there are certain requirements of my life that only the mall can fulfill, and it makes me feel tingly in my naughty parts. I had a specific goal since I needed to pick up some supplies at the MAC counter, readying myself to brave those scary goth girls with their jet-black hair and chartreuse eye-shadow.

I had changed into my workout clothes, since I had planned on walking after I got home from work, but I didn't look like a total skank. Not exactly Nordstrom-worthy, but nowhere near K-mart caliber. A'ight? Of course the second I breezed through the doors into the high-brow department store I was waiting for the Not What to Wear crew to ambush me before I hit the escalator. Or at the very least, end up in the back pages of Glamour with a big black bar over my eyes, displayed as an example of "What chubby girls should never wear to uppity stores let alone in public".

I was saved by my cell phone and put my paranoia temporarily at bay. I farted around for a bit while chatting, mocking and laughing, and I found one of my favorite shirts on sale. Score! I finished my convo and headed downstairs to cosmetics. I scanned the MAC counter to see if there was anyone remotely human to deal with, and before I had a chance to make my choice, Elvira popped in front of my face and I tried not let my head visibly snap back in horror. Seriously, being edgy and different is one thing. Looking like you got drunk and fell onto a makeup pallet is another. That was some wild-ass stuff my little make-up girl had going on.

I already knew what I wanted but needed some help choosing a lipstick color. I had heard about a certain light shade I was interested in and plucked it out of the stand on my first try. It was pale and shimmery and looked pretty good on the stick. Normally the sales girl inquires right away if you'd like to try something, but of course I had to ask to try it on and she looked at me for a moment as if I'd demanded to finger her ass instead of test out a tube of lipstick.

I figured this excursion was going to be a chore with witchy woman. I applied the new lipwear and looked into the mirror. It was the exact shade of my lips, not an easy feat mind you, and I mentioned it. Elvira spurts, "It's a nude shade, what did you expect?" OK, I'm in a pretty good mood after getting not 1 but 3 calls from friends today, and I have some chocolate in my future, so I'm going to let that little snip go and spare you a nasty poke in that psychedelic sarcastic stupid eye of yours. Beeeech.

I decided to move on to my next quest. I've wanted to be able to wear classic red on my pretty pouty pucker all my life. You know, get that dramatic-starlet-from-the-50's look. But I can't. I just end up looking like I got into my mommy's make-up. Or a whore. A bad whore. An off-the- strip Golden Nugget Vegas whore. So my next choice was dark red with blue tones. (Chicks will know what I'm talking about).

Elvira was busy juggling me, the phone, and bitching with her co-workers over "Miffy" and her "big fat lie" about "stocking the drawers" cuz "she totally di'int". Umm, sales people? When there are customers in ear shot, keep you crabbing pieholes shut. We paying patron's don't give a flying fat that Miffy lied to you, or that your boss is a menopausal hag, or that your yeast infection hasn't cleared up. We don't want to hear it! MmmK?

The lipstick choosing turned into color arguing. Hey, Kelly Osborne's love child, I know what the color red is. I had the 88 Crayola box you twat. This is not red. It's brown. No, I don't like that. No, that's not what I meant. I also know what plum is. This is dark red. Not plum. The kind of dark red I'm looking for. But thanks!

She actually told me at one point that I didn't want dark red. Oh really, I said, I don't? No, you want plum. OK fucker. We had the plum conversation a minute ago. I want deep red. That's purple. And I already own that one. Ya coont.

She walked away for the 10th time to go do whatever and I found one I liked all by myself. Elvira don't know shit. And getting her to help me find the matching liner was ridiculous. It's not like she had to fly to headquarters and retrieve it. This only required bending over. She grabbed the liners and just kept shaking the jar at me, telling me that it's my choice what color I want. No shit She-Rah. But can you maybe spare a brain cell and narrow it down to a couple that match so I'm not lining my beautifully blood-stained lips with frosty orange? Jaysus H. on a popsicle stick. I'm paying you money. I'm not asking you to physically lick my sphincter, so could the word courtesy enter your vocabulary?

I wrapped things up at Nordy's and cruised around the mall a little. I went over to Sephora but it was too bright and shiny and I got scared. Some places you shouldn't go into alone. You need to have a buddy there with you to talk you out of unfortunate choices and keep lying sales people from talking you into those rainbow moonboots with the sparkle ties and the perfume that makes you smell like a cinnamon roll. (One should never smell like a pastry, flowers yes, breakfast, no). Plus I was completely ignored in that store so I left.

My next stop was a chocolatier that I'd been told about earlier in the day. How this place has escaped my radar I do not know. It was a charming little store that had a display of very exotic, hand-made chocolates, a drink and goodie bar, specialty wines, books, gifts, etc. Very Chocolat sans Johnny Depp. I'll write about this later, but they had some ca-razy concoctions. Cheese, pulverized chilies, small furry animals. I lie, but really, they were freaky. I tried a goat cheese one and it wasn't so bad, until I chomped on a pepper. Then the effect was ruined. But I'll try it again. It's chocolate after all. I'd eat a piece of dog-shit if it was covered in chocolate.

Next I went over to Robinson's May. That's like Bloomie's for those not familiar with California malls. I didn't need anything but thought a new shirt for the party I'm going to this weekend would be fun. The second I walked through the doors my eyes experienced an assault I should file suit over. It looked like Easter had exploded in there. Everywhere I turned I saw BRIGHT yellow, BRIGHT pink, BRIGHT green. I wouldn't have been surprised if I'd seen a giant bunny folding pants. And this is where I will break my own rule and use the phrase GAH! Because there is nothing else that will suffice. GAH!

It's stuff like this that makes perfectly sane people talk to themselves and make uncontrollable faces of disgust. And don't you say "nah ah" to me cause you would have too!!

I knew I was up for yet another retail challenge, weeding through this neon nightmare to find something black, or at least decent. A salesperson swooped down on me, while I was blanching over an orange shirt with white polka dots, and tried to talk me into buying something colorful. I thought her use of the word "colorful" was interesting since I'd been thinking the word "horrendous". Paired with puke and no fucking way not on a bet. But at least this woman wasn't looking at me like a had a third tit growning out of my forehead.

As I was searching for something black and/or appropriate, I found myself getting very anxious trying to figure out the damn sizes of this shit. Who's the genius who thought it a good idea to put the size on a tag and face it towards another tag with the designers uninteresting blather on it? I had to turn around like 100 tags and I already had my hands full with my other purchases and the chocolate I was trying sneak into my hungry maw. Then another shirt I liked had a dark brown tag with miniscule dark brown letters showing the size. Shoot. And I'd forgotten my black light. FUCKERS!

I finally found a few things, in 3 different sizes because GOD FORBID there will actually ever be in the whole damn world some kind of standard sizing that's somewhat bloody accurate. And it didn't cost me a kidney in exchange.

As I made my way home, sighing with incredulity and wishing mild harm on those who run this particular industry for make it so fucking hard for consumers to purchase anything, I thought to myself, when I'm ruler of the world, shopping will be a pleasant experience, jeans will actually fit, and J Lo will be eaten by a pack of rabid beavers who've escaped from her fugly over-priced clothing sweat shop. And then life will be good.