Erik goes shopping, somehow retains some semblance of masculinity.

Yesterday consisted of the Pretty Girl and I going shopping. After picking up a Mother's Day gift for dear old ma I decided I wanted to do some movie shopping at the local Suncoast. The problem with Suncoast is that it's located in Bellevue Square mall, which is the yuppiest place in the Seattle area.

After browsing the DVD shelves we walked around and peaked our heads in other stores. I was feeling kind of parched so I told her I wanted to get something to drink. She said she would wait for me in a shoe store called Aldo.

Yep she's a clever one that Pretty Girl. I walked into the understaffed shoe store and stood in amazement. My normal shoe shopping consists of me going to Ross, Pay Less, or Big 5 and usually takes me no more than 10 minutes to find adequate footwear. Normally I browse their clearance bins which have shoes thrown about in no particular orderly fashion. This place I walked into was very different.

Aldo has fine crafted shelves with shoes placed on them with care. They had advertisements of various celebrities endorsing their products all the while seeming to make a statement about AIDS, including Pink, Avril Lavigne, and even Adrian Brody. Adrian Brody?

The Pretty Girl waited patiently while the overworked, but cheery hot clerk attended everyone in a somewhat manic, but reliable fashion. I sat down and sipped my water and observed the orderly chaos that is shoe shopping. There were many interesting folk there, most of them being women dressed hotter than they really are. There was a guy though that caught my attention right away.

He was a dark haired gent who was dressed in a grey and white striped button down shirt, grayish pants, and strange dark grey elf like shoes with pointy tips. He just had a metrosexual look that just screamed he was trying way too hard.

After shoe shopping the Pretty Girl decided to go perfume browsing at Macy's. This was an experience I've never had before, nor hopefully will again. We walked through the fragrance section and were bombarded with over dressed women hawking their scent. The women gave us paper with perfume, but some decided that wasn't enough and had to spray the Pretty Girl with their product. She had so much scent on her that we had to drive out of there with the sunroof and windows open.

She asked me what I thought of each of them. I told her I didn't like on particular perfume to which she reminded me that's exactly the one she wears. Doh!

After a blue haired girl with way too much cleavage assisted us with our perfume needs I took a look around to observe the rest of the workers. There were so many and all of them had a particular look. We had a extremely busty high pitched blonde, an older woman who seems to wish she were still 22, an older woman who didn't care, a girl who hardly wore makeup, and another that seemed to have been made up by Dutch Boy.

I felt like I was in a Turkish market rather than Macy's. Usually when I go shopping I never have to deal with such pushy salespeople. After a while I felt my masculinity slowing easing out of my soul to the point where I wanted to jump on the counter, rip off my shirt, whip out a beer and cigar, and scream "I'm a man goddamn it. I am a man. I like naked ladies and boxing and large amounts of alcohol. I love driving fast especially with a stripper who goes by the name of Misty in the passenger seat. I flush twice. I create fire. Hear me for I am man." I suppose Miss Manners wouldn't approve of my fantasy outburst, but it sure would've been funny. If I had done it though I'd probably be single now if not in jail.

I really don't see how you women do it. After that experience I believe it's criminal the military doesn't allow women in combat.

The cornucopia of smells assaulted my nostrils and I started to feel dizzy. I figured if I ever want to do drugs again I won't call a shady friend. I'll just head on down to a department store.

"On the one hand, shopping is dependable: You can do it alone, if you lose your heart to something that is wrong for you, you can return it; it's instant gratification and yet something you buy may well last for years." - Judith Krantz