Shopping, no Justice for Dad

I don't usually blog about current events in my family. Oh sure, sometimes, I will sprinkle in an antidote here and there, but for the most part, I protect their privacy. And your beta waves; ie I try not to put you to sleep with my writing. Really, you most probably have your own families, do you need to be bored with mine also?

Until today, that is. You see, an absolutely sad thing just happened to us, a death in the family, my cousin Bernadette. I may write more about Bernadette later. She was a wonderful person who deserves a real blog post, and not one written by someone who is still in incoherent grief mode. So that is for another day.

Back to now: we had a funeral to attend, and none of us had appropriate clothes to wear.


Now to know Bernadette, you would know that she would never want us to attend wearing black tulle, our children uncomfortable, sitting stiffly in chairs, their feet being pinched by fancy shoes. She wouldn't want them dressed in a fuchsia orchid pattern either!

First step was for me. We went to an exclusively, woman's shop. Truly, they sold nothing except woman's clothes, and I was out of there, with an outfit in hand, within a half hour. I also applied for one of their credit cards, so I got a complete outfit, totally on sale already, for an additional 15% off! YES!

Husband went to Target, and got a very nice looking suit, within a half hour also. We picked up our daughters shoes there at the same time, still within that half hour. Great prices, not a torturous shopping trip, we were thrilled.

Off to WalMart for husband's and son's shoes. Took about a half an hour, shoes were a bargain at $20 per pair. We figured they'd only wear them for the funeral, so not a big deal how well they wore, or even if they'd start to pinch after a few hours. Mission accomplished! Also got son's dress pants and button down shirt within the same half hour. Yes!!!

But in WalMart, it was absolutely impossible to find our daughters anything remotely appropriate to wear, and I tried desperately to piece together an outfit. Fail. EPIC fail.

Off to Target. A much better selection of clothes, but again, nothing remotely appropriate for a funeral.

My husband said between gritted teeth, "This means we have to go to the mall, doesn't it?"

I opted to go right by JC Penney, Sears, and Macy's, to head for the big guns: Justice For Girls. Just as I had found everything I needed at my woman's store, I thought we'd find everything our daughters needed in a store dedicated to girls.

Fail. Epic fail.

We started off on a great note; not only did they have pants that weren't jeans in my daughters sizes, they were also black. Saints preserve us, they actually fit without the need for any alterations! One daughter was even able to get a camisole there. And then our luck ran out. There wasn't an overshirt, blazer, sweater or tunic in a demure color in the whole store. And then the other shoe fell. Each pair of pants cost $40. Yes, $40 for probably less than a yard of material, and sewing that didn't even include putting in a zipper.

Daddy - How can they charge $40 for a pair of girls pants?

Daughter - Because they can.

Moral here - There is no justice for a parent's budget at Justice For Girls.

Then it was off to Sears to see if we could find a complete top for one daughter and an over shirt, tunic, sweater, anything, for the other daughter. It's now an hour before the stores close and a matter of hours before our pre-dawn drive. We find the girls section and ....... again, no demure colors; a plethora of orange, lime, fuchsia and peacock blue. But that didn't really matter because there wasn't one single cardigan sweater, twin set, overshirt or blazer.

Now we are desperate because literally we have minutes left to shop. We hurry to the petite section of the Woman's section. Yes! We are able to find two tops that coordinate well with the pants and camisole. The store is actually closing the cash registers as our purchases are being rung up. The employees practically walk us to the door.

Mission accomplished!

Observation: The two smallest people in our group, individually have the most expensive outfits.