Departmental

I had a nice lunch with a friend today who gave me free concert tickets. The conversation was nice, too.

After my lunch, I walked over to The Bay. I accidentally paid my bill twice last month and had an $80 credit. I needed to get Christmas and long overdue thank you cards and figured, "Hey, free 80 bucks!"

I've decided that one of the things that frustrates me most about shopping is never knowing where anything is. I must have looked at the in-store maps about a dozen times. I pride myself on being able to read maps, but there is something fundamentally confusing about navigating a department store.

At the root of the problem is that there was not a single instance in which I approached the escalator correctly. It I wanted to go up, I first arrived at the down escalators and had to wind my way around merchandise in order to find the way up. At one point the escalator jumped over to another section and instead of turning the right way, I turned the wrong way and wandered around trying to find the right way. The whole time looking at the map, and feeling like a moron for clearly appearing like I didn't belong there.

Just a point of digression... the escalator is not a ride. You are still supposed to walk up it, or, at the very least, move to one side or the other. If you are shopping with a friend, do not stand side-by-side stand in single file so I can get the hell out of there faster.

I did manage to find what I wanted, but it took a real toll on my feet. Something about the floors of department stores make my body tired and sore seconds after treading upon them. I am also sure that the temperature in there was 5 degrees higher than everywhere else. My head gets cloudy in that heat, and the feeling of utter loss of direction, and the confusion of not knowing which way is north sends me into a panic of, "What if I never get out of here? How much longer will I have to keep walking before I find the stationary department? Where is the mall entrance? What if I get too tired to go home and have to stay here?"

There are 26 days until Christmas and I dread having to return to any store. More and more I'm thinking that this'll be a strictly online gift holiday.