karma

I had a delightful afternoon shopping with Becca. Normally I dread shopping during Christmastime, there's no place to park, the crowds are rude and the salesclerks ar harried, but today was not bad at all.

the day began with whining. Becca. a/k/a the shopaholic, wanted to add to her copious wardrobe, but I didn't have the cash to indulge her addiction.

remember how I had to go to social security to replace our missing cards? the new ones arrived in today's mail. when Becca went to put hers in her drawer, she discovered that she had several gifts cards....they were given to her at her sweet 16 last summer, and she'd forgotten about them. she had cards for Bloomie's, abercrombie & Fitch and sephora.

so off we went to the mall.

my plan was to park near Bloomingdale's, so I started searching for a spot in that lot. eventually I saw a car about to pull out from a spot as far away from the store as you could be and still be at the mall, and I pulled up...only to realize another car was also waiting for that spot, and he'd been there first. I was in the better position, I could have blocked his way and "stolen" the spot, but Becca and I agreed that we should do "the right thing" and let him have the spot.


so I kept hunting. finally found a spot at the other end of the mall -- right near Macy's. in fact, if I were any closer to the door, i would have been inside the mall.

our first stop was Abercrombie & fitch. Now, I was really surprised Becca still had her gift cards from this store -- when Becca had her party last June, Jen was still working for Abercrombie and had an employee discount, and I assumed Becca would have taken advantage of that. apparently not. anyhow, the cashier today was a classmate of jen's and asked how she's enjoying college.

next we went to Bloomie's. Becca really likes Juicy Couture (who doesn't?), but the stuff is prohibitively expensive. today everything Juicy was on sale, and bloomie's was also running a promotion -- for every $100 you spend today or tomorrow, you get a $15 gift certificate good anytime monday or later.

then we walked to the middle of the mall, where Santa holds court, and there was a woman from Godiva handing out coupons for free truffles.

so we made an unscheduled stop in godiva. now, we could have just taken our free truffles and gone, but I'm not comfortable doing that...so we bought a box of chocolates -- and got a fre bar of dark chocolate as well.

next was sephora -- Becca's version of the promised land. she's a member of their rewards club, so when she went to pay for her eyeliner, the girl behind the counter told her she'd earned enough rewards points for a free gift.

then, on to macy's. Becca realized she had a card for macy's, too, but wouldn't have gone into the store today if we hadn't parked where we did. Becca like expensive perfumes, but that's the kind of thing I reserve for special occasions. yet she had a card for the store, so she indulged herself with a small bottle of Dior. and got a cute Dior bag as a free gift.

by the time we picked up our sandwiches at Panera, Becca was telling me "this was the best day of my life," and attributing our good fortune to karma for doing the right thing in the parking lot.