#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.

#22 Thanksgiving

Aside from Halloween, Thanksgiving might be a single girl's favorite holiday.

For Thanksgiving is an American holiday and if there is one thing that Americans know how to do right, it is EAT. Thanksgiving is a completely gluttonous holiday with food consumption as its ONLY priority (no presents, no religious obligations, JUST eating) so single girls may starve ourselves 364 days out of the year in order to binge on this special day.

Because we're eating (a lot, and in public, to boot), we say "no thanks" to Spanx. Single girls thanked our lucky stars when empire waist and tent dresses came back in style. And how can we forget Lindsay Lohan for her one contribution to society? Indeed, the second coming of leggings. After all, the glorious thing about leggings, besides pairing so well with tunics, is their elastic waistbands.

Now that our food belly can be safely concealed under something equally chic and unrestraining, Thanksgiving is the one day a year single girls will ignore our internal calorie counters. Instead, we think about Thanksgiving's health benefits: turkey is a lean meat and good source of protein, cranberry sauce is an excellent source of antioxidants, one slice of pumpkin pie contains more than 100% of your daily value of vitamin A, and it now appears that mashed potatoes potentially lower blood-pressure. Seconds? Yes, PLEASE!

While we're happily gorging on our Thanksgiving feasts, we might even humor our relatives with pithy responses to their relentless badgering of our (lack of) romantic pursuits.  To Aunt Betty who thinks we can't "find a man" because we wear "too much make-up," we might tell her that after our last boyfriend dumped us, we are seriously considering devoting ourselves to Jesus and becoming a nun.  To Uncle Tom who thinks we can't "land a husband" because we don't wear enough make-up, we might tell him that our "boyfriend" is up in outerspace on a special NASA mission.  Indefinitely.

On the other hand, Thanksgiving can be quite the bittersweet holiday.  Once Black Friday rolls around, it will be a rough three months braving the triumverate of holidays that single girls loathe - Christmas (mistletoe envy), New Year's Eve (midnight kiss anxiety), and the dreaded Valentine's Day (aka Single Awareness Day).  Not until St. Patrick's Day (a single girl's favorite drinking holiday), can we go about our merry (and unmarried) single way.
 
So single girls, between mouthfuls of your first slice of pie, think about the one thing we are most thankful for (aside from elastic waistbands) - our autonomy. 
 
Happy Thanksgiving!

#15 Halloween

Single girls like Halloween and not just because all our favorite candy is available in miniature bite-sized versions of themselves.  (Portion control makes for easier calorie counting.)

Halloween is to single girls what Valentine's Day is to non-single girls.  Both holidays call for sexy outfits and exposed lingerie in hopes of impressing a dude. (Or dudes.)  Everyone believes that Halloween is the one night a year where it is socially acceptable for girls to traipse around in slutty outfits. But isn't that what Vegas is for?  Besides, single girls know that Halloween is really an excuse for guys to wear make-up.  (It's true, we know guys developed an appreciation for eyeliner application after using it on their Jack Sparrow costumes last year.)

With this carte blanche for public indecency, leave it to single girls to figure out a way to create all kinds of "sexy whatever" costumes.  We've seen the sexy pirate, sexy pilot, sexy angel, sexy bumblebee, sexy Marie Antoinette, sexy Harry Potter - hell, I've even seen a sexy Freddy Krueger outfit.  (Halloween actually originated as a Celtic holiday where it is believed that costumes and masks were worn to ward off evil spirits.  Hence, a Freddy Krueger Halloween costume is totally appropriate, although the effectiveness of "scaring" an evil spirit with a slutty Krueger outfit is questionable.  Unless the evil spirit were gay.)  In light of this year's current events, I wouldn't be surprised to run across a sexy Balloon Boy or sexy Max from Where the Wild Things Are.

Single girls have loved dressing up for Halloween ever since we were fairy princesses in kindergarten.  Even when we were five years old, before we even knew what role playing was (just grown-up speak for "using your imagination"), we knew how thrilling role playing could be.  (Go away, Pedo Bear, I didn't mean it like that.)
 
When we put on that "sexy whatever" costume, we become this "sexy whatever."  We adopt opinions and behaviors of our "sexy whatevers" because you expect it and we can actually get away with it.  Are you a sexy UPS driver?  Do you have a package for me?  Are you a sexy police officer?  Hands up where I can see 'em, and spread your legs!  Are you a sexy referee?  Personal foul!  Tight end!  Are you a sexy witch?  [insert inappropriate remark about riding "broomsticks" here]  Are you a sexy devil?  Well...aren't we all?

Single girls are no stranger to costumes or role playing.  (After all, isn't dating a giant metaphor for role playing?)  Some of us have a Wonder Woman costume and/or nurse outfit hanging in our closets (next to the trenchcoat, of course).  But on Halloween, we go ALL OUT.  Tricks or treats, anyone?