Some things just make you happy and proud. Some things are rights of passage. Some times they happen concurrently.
About 10 days ago I got a call from my niece. She wanted to know if I would go shopping with her for dresses for work. I had never been shopping with her before but in this family I have a reputation. Some would say a bad reputation because I am a shop-o-holic. Yes bonafide in the wool shop-o-holic who has no desire to be cured or saved. I have the closet to prove it. But, I also have a reputation, reinforced and restated here on these boards, that I don't dress appropriately. In short, I dress too...uh... provocative (some have used stronger wording). Not what one would wear to work unless it involved cocktails or something similar (fill in your own ideas).
I was taken aback ( whatever that means) at this invitation. This was for clothing that would be worn in an office setting. Hey, I, like many who hang out here, have pretty good taste in clothes for dressing up. Things that look nice and can look feminine (using our definition mostly) so what could I say? Yes of course. We decided to go Saturday (which would be today but if you are reading this a week from now it would have been last Saturday or how ever many days ago it was) after I finished work.
Of course because of that I would be going in male mode, but in our minds aren't we always fem? Lunch first though and conversation which would cover things we had not talked about for a long time. I thought maybe she would need to talk about the losses of her aunt (my wife) and her older sister but the conversation barely skimmed those and was rather light.
Then off to the mall and four hours of searching racks and racks of clothes. She wanted light, springy, colorful sundress type dresses (which seems redundant to say sundress dresses) and at least one short sleeve black jacket to cover the sun part of the dress. She asked my opinion about some, I chose some for her to try, she modeled some when she wasn't sure. Six stores later 4 dresses, two skirts, a top and the jackets were part of two of the dresses (bonus!).
Somehow ( I don't remember exactly) Dress Barn was suggested (mostly cuz I said "The girls online like Dress Barn). I had never shopped at Dress Barn but off we went for one last stop. I had been very good and not picked up anything for me (amazing huh?) but this was the breaking point. Hey you can't pass up 70% off and now I have another skirt and camisole top. Oh yeah she picked up three more dresses and a skirt.
So as you can plainly see, the right of passage is that, yes I have shopped and bought clothes at Dress Barn. I think that promotes me a level here doesn't it?