A Shopping Adventure

The plan for this holiday weekend included painting the side of the house that was damaged in the tornado, then taking a drive down the river to a little place called Slippery's, a bar made famous in the movie Grumpy Old Men, for a leisurely lunch on their deck.  Then the storms came, and that all went out the window. 

Instead, Walker, Diva, and I went shopping.  Diva needed a new dress for the graduations and weddings we're attending this summer.  I had a gift card to Kohl's, so off we went.  The sky was dark but it wasn't raining when we entered the store.  Pretty soon, though, we heard thunder.  Lots of thunder.  I joked that we needed to stick together so when the tornado sirens went off, we'd end up in the same shelter.  Miss Diva made her selections and off we went to the dressing room.  Only, my baby girl turned to me and asked for privacy while she tried on her dresses.  Just like that, I was banished to the sofa outside to wait with Walker.

Pretty soon, though, I was summoned back to the dressing room.  One of the tops Diva chose had a blue camisole under a sheer, floaty paisley top.  The camisole was stitched to the top with one loose thread at each strap, to keep the two pieces together while they were in the store. To make matters more complicated, the top had split sleeves. Diva got tangled up trying to get the thing on so I went in to help.  We were still trying to figure it out when the power went out.  Diva and I were a foot apart and I could not see her.

We stood there, not really sure what to do.  You know, a store the size of Kohl's had to have some sort of backup power.  Whomever designed those dressing rooms neglected to put in any sort of emergency lighting, creating an enormous liability for the store.  Imagine someone with a hearing impairment, trapped in there.  Imagine a mother with a very young child she can no longer see.  Imagine someone with a balance issue, who needs a cane but set it down to try clothes and now can't find it in the pitch dark.  Not to mention the average Jane, like me and Diva, unable to see the chair we were about to trip over as we made our way out of the dressing room.  Major fail, Kohl's.  No excuse.

Pretty soon someone came around to check on us.  She hollered that someone else would be bringing us flashlights.  Unfortunately, that never happened.  Eventually we got Diva dressed in her own clothes.  I located my purse, which held my cell phone, and opened it to trigger the light on the screen.  It wasn't much but it was enough for us to find our way out.  In the main store there was an emergency light on, creating a dusky effect that was light enough for us to find Walker.  At the direction of a sales clerk, we headed to the front of the store.

The front of this particular Kohl's houses the junior's department.  Diva, who has always shopped in the girl's section, was in heaven.  Bright colors, slinky fabrics, metallic embellishments!  By the time the lights came on she had a selection of dresses to try on, and I was pretty much resigned to the fact that my little girl was barreling toward adolescence and was not looking back.  Luck for both of us, the dress she loved the best was one that I also loved, the least grown up of the bunch.  It's a sweet sundress done in an antique white with navy and purple roses printed on it.  More grown up than what Diva usually wears, but not the least bit over the top.  And it was on sale, for less than the amount of my gift card. Score!

To celebrate, we headed to Dairy Queen for Confetti Cake Blizzards, then we zipped over to the hardware store so Walker could recharge his man batteries wandering among all the tools and boy stuff.  Diva and I priced a new front door, but I wasn't thrilled with the selection.  I did find some closet doors that were not on their website - wahoo! - but we didn't pick them up since they won't fit in my car.  And then we went home.