Let's Go to the Mall

I went to the mall today.

I hate the mall.

Wait. Before we get into that, it's been almost two years since I have written anything here, and even though my older sister is the only person I'm certain reads this blog from time to time, more people might someday, so I'll update:

In October, I got married. It was awesome.

In November, I started writing a book.

December was Christmas. Don't pretend like you got anything done that entire month, either.

In January, I turned 26 and began learning about bookbinding (it's just a coincidence that those two happened in the same month. I wasn't waiting until this magic year to learn a new skill).

In February I finished writing the book and got a first round of edits done in March.

Now it's April, and we're finally going on our HONEYMOOON!* We're going to Paris for a week and a half. I'm finally getting the chance to use all the French I acquired from junior high to sophomore year of college -- at least until they start responding to me in English to stop me from butchering their most precious language. More importantly, this is my chance to deplete the national reserves of fromage. Most importantly, it's an opportunity to pretend I'm Ingrid Bergman, and dress up in scarves and red lipstick and take up smoking.

"I would never set foot in a mall, you simpleton."

Hence why I was at the mall, my least favorite place in all the world. I needed a trench coat, naturally. I ordered one about a week ago, but the sleeves fell down past my tiny dinosaur arms and made me look like a small child playing dress-up. Damn you, I whispered. To no one, really. It's not anyone's fault. At least, that's what I told myself as I hung from a set of monkey bars for an hour to try and stretch out my arms.

So this evening, instead of celebrating the start of our honeymoon by lighting an eternal flame, Olympics-style, I went to the mall. I knew what this would entail: Since we don't have a Trench Coats 'R' Us nearby, I'd have to make a sweep of every single store in the entire mall until I found one.

I stepped into Boscov's, took a deep breath, immediately choked on the thick scent of leather mixed with indiscriminate perfume, staggered into a rack of handbags, righted myself, looked around to see if anyone noticed, made uncomfortable eye contact with a man shopping for women's nightgowns, casually picked up a sensible pump, casually put it back down, and then set off.

While shopping, I tend to move in a half-efficient manner: I bee-line from one shop to the next (only way to avoid veering toward the Cinnabon), but once inside a store, I wander, bewildered, among the racks of clothing with my neck stretched up above the hangers, my head darting around like I'm the Meerkat of Macy's.**

From store after store, I emerged with no shopping bags in tow, but with the slightly uneasy feeling that I was doing something wrong. I just know what I want and you don't have it! I'm not casing the joint, I swear! I didn't steal anything and stash it in my tiny purse! I don't even have room for my sunglasses in there! I tried to convey the innocence of my intentions through body language*** to the security cameras which were no doubt hidden around the store, but which I didn't want to address directly as this would only make me seem even more suspicious. Still, maybe if I were wearing a trench coat I could have gotten away with using a phrase like "casing the joint."

I did find several coats, actually. And they were all on sale. But this one looked cheap, that one felt weird, another one was kind of see-through and had a leopard-print lining so that when it got wet in the rain you would definitely be able to see the print. Is it part of the design? I wondered. I considered pouring water on it, just to expose the problem, but I didn't know how long my quest would last. I needed to preserve my resources.

But really, this isn't a story about a coat. This is about the mall.

There's a reason I do all my shopping online. Malls make me tired. And hungry. And sad. Mirrors are everywhere; I'm surrounded by people who are prettier than I am and outfits that are trendier than mine.

BUT HERE'S WHERE THE POST TAKES A DRAMATIC TURN. First you thought it was about malls. THEN you thought it was about trench coats. THEN you thought it was about malls again. BUT NO! IT'S ABOUT BODY IMAGE!

Friends, readers, countrymen, hold onto your butts, because you will have a hard time believing this next bit, and I don't want your butt to fall off from shock...as butts are apt to do sometimes. At least, that's what I hear. It's never...I mean, my butt has never fallen off from shock. Or any other emotion. But that's not to say it couldn't happen. I'm just lookin out for you, man. Better to be safe than sorry, you know?

Anyway.

For the past three weeks, I have been not only exercising consistently, but dieting. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?! My resting heart rate is down. I can run up the stairs and only be mildly winded. I've lost five pounds. And yes, most of that is water weight from all the tears I've shed while clutching entire blocks of cheese to my chest during sit-ups, but I am still proud of myself. This fitness kick is partly because we're staying on the street with all those stairs and I don't want to die next week, but also because this marriage weight I kept hearing about snuck up on me. I almost did lose my butt from shock when I stepped on the scale and found I'd gained ten pounds in four months. That's fine when you're a normal height, but not for someone my size.

Okay. Backstory over. Back to the mall. And all the mirrors. Wandering around, I kept catching glimpses of my reflection from angles I was not prepared to see ever. Even though I know that I look better than I did three weeks ago, nobody else who saw me today knew that. I'd actually been making an effort, but it still didn't feel like enough. I didn't feel like enough. I left the house feeling pretty and confident, but in two hours, the mall beat me down until I was all but crawling back to my car.

Now that I'm home with some Chinese takeout in me, I'm all like, "Why did I care what four pre-teens and some dudes at the cell phone kiosks and the guy at American Eagle wearing jorts and the blonde lady with the chignon at the makeup counter thought of the way I look?"

The answer, friends, is because of the malevolent influence of the mall.

THAT'S RIGHT, DUDES. THIS POST REALLY WAS ABOUT THE MALL ALL ALONG. PRANKED!****

Essentially, online and IRL shopping are the same, except with one you don't have to put on pants. Malls don't have pop-up ads and models on retainer, so they have to show you how hideous you are without using direct comparisons. They do this through poor lighting, and mirrors--mirrors everywhere! They wear you out with all the walking. They never have your size in the thing you really want. They saturate the air with cologne. They play that crazy loud techno music. None of the sizes fit the same from one store to the next. They make you interact with salespeople when all you want to do is wrestle yourself halfway into a pair of jeans in a cramped dressing room before giving up, so you sit there breathing heavily and you try to swallow your shame and frustration before the tears come.

Some people do like the mall. I guess. But I do not. And I finally realized that it wasn't worth torturing myself for the sake of a coat.

So I went home. I tried on the trench coat I already had. I looked at the picture of the model wearing it. I scrunched up the sleeves like she did. I popped the collar a little like hers. I mussed up my hair and cut ten inches off and chemically straightened it and dyed it blonde. I hunched my collar bones forward and jutted one hip out. I made a face that was wry and bored and superior all at once. And you know, as soon as I did all that, the trench coat actually looked pretty good.

Problem solved.



*Do me a favor and shout that in your mind like Oprah would. Or shout it out loud. It'll be weird, but you do what you want.
**Just kidding. We don't have a Macy's here. We have a Boscov's. And a Bon Ton. 
***The way you do this is to extend your arms out to the sides, palms open, hold your chin up, and walk very slowly, peeling your feet off the ground as if you're a beautiful, mysterious creature emerging from the a beautiful, mysterious lake shrouded in timeless mists.
**** "Good one, Carrie," they all said.

Image: Publicity shot for Arch of Triumph, a film I have not seen but probably will now.

Another Visit to the Dentist

This set is for sale in Lancaster. Soon I'll be able to perform
all my own dentistry at home!

This morning I woke up, as I usually do. I made some coffee, drank it. And then, because I was feeling a little wild, I decided to make another cup. I downed the dregs of my first but instantly recoiled from a sharp pain in my back molar.

"No," I whispered. "The cavity -- she is here." I ran to the bathroom mirror and, peering into my gaping maw, spotted a dark pinprick of a hole in my tooth. "So you're here at last. I've been expecting you."

 I called up my dentist's office and explained the situation. "I'm leaving for my honeymoon on Saturday," I said, trying to keep the edge of panic from my voice. "Is there anything you can possibly do--?"

COME ON IN TODAY, said the Very Helpful Receptionist. YOU HAVE ONE HOUR. BE THERE.

"Your tone changed rapidly," I said. "This is a roller coaster."

I quickly dressed, brushed my teeth, and sped on over to the dentist. At this point, I was forty minutes early for my appointment, so I sat in the car and fretted for thirty-eight of those minutes. Then I went inside, let them know I was there, used the bathroom, sat down, and then fretted some more because I couldn't remember if I flushed. Really, what do you do in that situation? It's not like you can sneak back in there without anyone else in the waiting room noticing and wondering what's up with yer finnicky bowels. You can't lean over and ask someone if they heard you flush or not. All you can do is sit in agony and hope to escape to the sweet relief of a woman scraping plaque off your teeth with a sharp instrument before somebody else goes in to use the bathroom --

"Carrie?" It wasn't my usual hygienist. But it was my usual name.

"THAT'S ME." I jumped up, nearly spilling everything out of my bag, and followed her down a hall and to the right. We traveled far into the depths of the building. I usually go through a little door to the left and two doors down, so this new route plus the new hygienist had me on edge.

The room she finally ushered me into appeared at first like any other exam room in the building: a window looking out on the business park next door, a framed picture of an iris (Flower, not eye. That would be weird). Chair. Spit sink. X-ray pictures of my teeth. It feels vaguely intrusive, having the insides of my teeth on display for anyone walking by. So intimate.

"I know you, child," they can say now. "I've seen what's in your teeth."

That's gross. Sorry. I was nervous.

The hygienist asked me a few questions and then left me alone with my thoughts. Which is never what you want, especially in a dentist's office. It gave me a chance to really look around at all the plastic devices from probably-the-'20s, faded yellow-brown with age and sporting names like Drill-o-Matic 5000.

"Are these just here for display?" I said. "Or do they mean to use them on my mouth?" But nobody answered. Because I was alone in the room. For ten minutes. The panic mounted.

Finally the hygienist came back. "The doctor will be with you in just a moment. For now I'm just going to take some X-rays, see what's going on in there."

The one part I like about going to the dentist is when they lay the lead apron on me before the pictures. The cool weight of it is comforting. It's the closest I can get in my adult life to being swaddled. Sometimes when I first wake up in the morning, all snuggled up under the blankets safe and cozy and warm with the smell of freshly brewed coffee on the cold air, I think, "You know the only thing that could make this cozier? The knowledge that my organs are protected from the damaging rays of X by a layer of lead."

Of course, the comfort of the apron was tempered a little by the extreme discomfort of the gag-inducing film apparatus they wrangled into my too-small mouth. But overall it was okay, because when the hygienist left again I got to pass the time by looking at pictures of the inside of my teeth and think, "What if they found something...else in there? Like a tiny person who's made a little home in my tooth?"  By the time the hygienist returned, I'd worked out a whole backstory for the little tooth person. I was going to tell her all about it, but who are we kidding, no I was not.

"So, the doctor will be right in," she said. YEAH, I'VE HEARD THAT ONE BEFORE, KELLEY-WITH-AN-E-Y. "I'm just going to do a quick test. Since you say it's affected by heat and cold, it could be something more serious."

Her examination consisted of two tests. First, she sprayed a freezing agent on the end of a Q-tip and rubbed it all over the back few molars. Did I scream? I am proud to say I did not, despite the excruciating pain from parts of my teeth I didn't know could feel any sensation at all. Did I let out a noise like a slide whistle played very slowly yet with a sharp crescendo? Why, yes.

"This is just to make sure that the nerves are still working," she said.

KELLEY. I CAN ASSURE YOU THEY ARE WORKING.

For the second round of torture, she picked up the air shooter thingy. You know when you drink ice-cold water or you smile into a winter wind, and it's like brain freeze on your front teeth? Well, imagine a concentrated version of that feeling, right where your gums have receded so that all that's left are the soft, uber-sensitive roots. I am not proud to say that this time, I did scream. But just a little bit. More like a yelp. And maybe I kicked a little.

"Easy there, girl," she murmured. "Alright. The doctor will be in to see you in just a moment."

I don't care how long he takes. Just go away. Go now and leave me alone. She left me huddled on the chair, the entire left side of my face pulsating in pain. "Could you bring back the lead apron? Please?" I bleated. But nobody heard.

I don't know how long I stayed like that. When I opened my eyes, the dentist came bustling in like Chris Tucker in The Fifth Element. "What's going on, Carrie?" he said. "There's nothing on your X-rays. I see nothing here! So WHAT is the problem, young lady? Why are you here?"

"Well -- it's -- this morning I saw a hole in my back molar. And it's been sensitive to cold and heat, so I just thought I'd get it checked out --"

"A hole?" he repeated, with his eye brows raised, exactly the way a mean middle school girl would try to undermine and mock you. "A hole?"

FREAKIN -- YES, A HOLE. A HOLE IN MY TOOTH. YOU'RE A DENTIST. WHY IS THIS SO HARD FOR YOU TO UNDERSTAND?! 

"Yeah," I said. "A hole. Well -- I mean, it looked like one, so I just thought --"

"That's just a sealant that's come out," he said. "Why are you wasting my time with this pedestrian nonsense?" he didn't say. But his eyes did.

Another lady came in to put the new sealant in and apply the medicine. She was kind to me. Spoke to me softly as she drilled the sealant down. Told me she just had a sealant replaced, too (You're just like me! I thought. We're the same!), and that it felt like she had a shoe on her tooth for a few days (You're so strange! Are we best friends now?!). Then she smeared some kind of angel goop on my sensitive roots. And I felt no pain.

"That feels so much better. Thank you." I love you. 

"You're all done. Looks like you're due for your six-month cleaning in two weeks," she said. "Enjoy your honeymoon!"

I never even learned her name.