the rest of the story

Posted by beth on November 3, 2007

I started telling the story about the dresses yesterday so that I could tell this story, but then the dress story became a story in and of itself, so I decided to wait on telling this story…until now.

So I was at the mall, returning those dresses, and I didn’t have any plans for the evening until much later, so I thought I’d walk around some. Then, thinking that it’s getting colder, I decided to start looking for this year’s “comfy sweater.” I don’t know why I don’t just wear the same comfy sweater from last year. Maybe it’s a style thing. I’m sure that it is. Anyhoe, I started going into all the stores hunting for a comfy sweater (which is basically just a gray, cardigan-type sweater, with or without a hood). And don’t ask me why I did this, but I went into Hollister.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Hollister, it is basically a children’s store that wants to look like it’s a store for high school/college-age kids. The way you can tell that it’s a children’s store is by looking at the marketing. If a store is trying to cater to high school/college, they will have marketing with pictures of girls who look like they’re in their late teens/early 20′s, but who are really at least 24. Hollister’s in-store marketing posters feature girls who are probably 18, but who look like they’re 12.

And I hope against hope that they really are 18, because if they’re not, I’m not kidding when I say that the marketing borders on child pornography. It was very disturbing. And the store itself is rather cavernous, which just adds to the creepiness. It’s all dark and claustrophobic.

They had a nice-looking comfy sweater there, but when I held one up, it looked like it might make a good sleeve for a comfy sweater that would actually fit me, so I put it down and hastened my exit from the cave.

Don’t let me go in there any more, and please, God, let it go out of business before I ever have children who might want to shop there.