Day: November 28, 2006

Thank you for all the wonderful responses to my last post about where to shop. I now have a plan for how to proceed and I’m dreading the process much less than before.

Last night I sat down with the kids to make bead candy canes. You make these by stringing beads onto pipe cleaners and then bending the thing into a cane shape. They make great Christmas ornaments and gifts. We also used jingle bells and pipe cleaners to make door hangers. I had mentally figured that both of these projects would take about 30 minutes to complete. I seriously underestimated the creative potential of pipe cleaners, beads, and jingle bells combined. The kids were making constructions for two hours and having worlds of fun while doing it.

For some reason Link felt that this sort of Christmas project required music. Since none was readily available, he favored us with a rendition of Jingle Bells. Gleek and Kiki joined him. It is a little known fact that any group of children who begins singing this particular Christmas tune will gradually increase the volume of the song with each iteration. In no time at all I had kids shouting Jingle Bells at full volume while bending pipe cleaners to their whims. Ah Christmas.

There are some kinds of shopping I like. I like to shop Howard’s amazon wishlist, or mine, or the kids. I like knowing exactly what I want and getting it quickly. I like leisurely browsing with money to spend how I please. Sometimes I like grocery shopping, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I like clothes shopping, sometimes I don’t. But there is one kind of shopping that I have always hated without exception. (WARNING: What follows is a discussion of the practicalities of shopping for women’s underwear. If you are male, you may want to skip the rest of this post.) I hate shopping for bras. I hate it so much that I will wear them until I can see through bits that weren’t designed to be see-through. The added see-throughness does not make them more attractive and makes them much less useful. I have finally accepted the fact that I must again go bra shopping. Grr.

I mentioned all of the above to Howard along with the fact that I’d need several hours to go try on underwear at Walmart and the fact that I would almost certainly come home from this grumpy but not necessarily having made the purchases. I confess I did rant a little about current bra fashions being more like padded breastplates. (I’m not at all convinced that bra utility is at all improved by being made out of padded foam, I think it’s just a fashion thing.) Howard listened to my rant patiently then asked: “Why do you shop for bras at Walmart?” Well, because they’re cheap. I hate buying bras even more if I’m spending piles of money. If I spend money and don’t love it, then I wear it every day and mentally groan at how much I had to spend to find something that is only adequate. I mentioned this to Howard and he countered with “If you shop someplace nicer, it might be more enjoyable.” He further pointed out that $150 for a set of bras is not too much to spend on something I have to wear every day. He further ordered me to blog about all of this and ask for advice on good places to shop where the experience will be less likely to engrumpify me.

So here I am, following orders like a good girl. I don’t need lingerie, just plain old underwear that I can use everyday. It needs to be so comfortable that I don’t even notice it is there. Attractiveness is a bonus. So, where should I shop?