Tuesday, December 15, 2009

#24 Holiday Shopping Hours

As most of you know, one pastime that single girls are especially fond of is shopping.  Not only does it have physical benefits as a form of cardiovascular activity, mental benefits include sanity preservation.  (Hence, "retail therapy.")

In fact, shopping is something we revere so much, a shopping binge at our favorite department store could be considered a religious experience for some of us.  Mental sanctuary or consumer temple?  Call it what you will, but shopping only gets better when stores and malls extend their retail hours.

Well, DUH, Single Girl 1.0, you're probably thinking. Of COURSE, girls love having extra hours to SHOP. It's like giving dudes extra points when their fantasy football QB throws for over 100 yards.

Well, not exactly.

You see, when single girls have a bad day at work or an argument with our mothers, we don't need a hug.  We need to shop.  What better way to distract ourselves from the injustices of life by lusting after the spring 2010 handbags at Gucci, followed by a corn dog at the mall food court?  Sounds perfect, right?  Not when there are throngs of holidays shoppers in our way. 

What happens after Thanksgiving is that department stores and malls turn into huge family clusterfucks. Apparently around the holidays, a family that spends together, stays together. So as much as single girls wish to partake in the yuletide cheer with the fake snow and Christmas lights, it's hard to get in the mood when our poor ankles and designer heels are constantly being nipped at by stupid baby strollers.

What was once a reliable refuge for us, our local shopping meccas become rife with plebians around the holidays. As much as we want to avoid the masses of people and families (and strollers!!), especially on Christmas Eve (oh dear God, that was the worst retail experience of my life - I am never again helping my brother shop for his girlfriend the day before Christmas), what can ever really stop us from setting foot into a mall? 

Thank goodness for the super genius consumer analyst (most likely a single girl) who was sensitive enough to answer our retail needs by proposing extended shopping hours around the holidays.

Did you know that at this time of year, some malls open as early as 8am and close as late as 10pm?  While non-single girls are rushing home at 8pm to tend to their husbands/boyfriends/children, single girls rejoice in those extra two hours we have to ourselves in our shopping havens.  Oh, holy night!  Peace and sanctity is restored, and all is well with the world.

Ironically, single girls don't enjoy holiday shopping hours because we're holiday shopping.  Oh no, we had all THAT figured out by Labor Day.  (What do you think we've been doing at malls and stores for the past forty weekends?)  We can't rely on men (not even Santa) to buy us what we want, we gotta rely on ourselves.  And seriously, with all those Christmas parties we're invited to, how can we possibly wear the same cocktail dresses in our closets when we've already been photographed in them so many times and subsequently tagged in dozens of Facebook pictures for the whole world to see?

Nay, at 9pm while all you poor schmucks are running around willy nilly trying to figure out what to buy for Aunt Edna, we're in a dressing room trying on a little black dress that may impress that guy Brett in accounting.

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