The mall store advertising clothing for $3.99 had “sweatshop” written all over it.
“Is there anything you would want?” my husband asked. “Should we look?”
I gave it a reluctant once-over. I’m an adult now, post-twenty-five, and part of my hashtag-rebrand is not buying cheap stuff anymore.
Nicholas and I both grew up frugally—him in a lower-middle-class three-person family in the Chicago suburbs, and me in a Chinese-American family of six in California where all four of us were expected to go to college. The difference was that Nick had faithfully retained the penny-pinching tenets of his upbringing, while I had developed a habit of “making it up to myself” for all the times I’d been taken to Target and knew I wasn’t supposed to ask for toys.
In any case, I had no interest in this store. It was the sort of place Asian and Hispanic mothers in their forties take their teenage daughters to shop for back-to-school clothes. (If you know, you know.)
But Nicholas wanted to look, so I followed him in.
“Do you need more gym leggings?” he asked, fingering a pair. I looked at them. They shone with the telltale sheen of polyester. That’s another part of my rebrand, too. I hate polyester.
Nicholas turned over the tag and laughed. “Do you need leggings that will push up your butt?” I suppressed a good-natured smirk. My butt was perky enough, thank you very much.
“Maybe you’d like some Christmas pants,” he said, gesturing to a display of festive fleecy pajama pants—only the fabric was too thin, and something about the mink felt off, like something you’d find on a knockoff Sonic the Hedgehog plush in a street market. “Would you wear these?”
Why is he so invested in me buying something here? I thought.
For reference, I had just bought two new pairs of jeans online at $100 each. No, my mother never would have bought them for me. That’s why I had bought them. I’d paid that much for them because they were the right length for my five-foot frame (something extremely rare) and were well-made and in style. I was a Real Woman now who liked Real Things and nothing in this probably-ethically-questionable-in-terms-of-manufacturing store could tempt me.
“Would you want a sweater?” Nicholas asked, pointing to the rack of sweaters on the wall. They were all one size. I took a closer look at one of them. It bore the prestigious brand name of “ZHJENLQIK.”
Why were we hanging around here, anyway? I’d had a bit of an online shopping spree over the past few months, and Nicholas had been gently telling me I ought to tone it down (we live in California, after all—and pay rent at that). So why now, when we were in a store full of Things I Would Never Buy, did he seem so set on me getting something?
“What do you think, bebby?” (‘Bebby’ is ‘baby,’ but pronounced like you’ve been together for four years and sharing a brain cell.) “Is there anything you like?”
…Oh.
…Oh!
The heavens parted, and suddenly I understood. I got it now—my man wanted to buy me stuff!
With that epiphany, the proverbial material girl that the philosopher Madonna once spoke of awoke within me.
Joy of joys, what a blessing to be alive! My hot, sexy husband, who’d promised to cherish and keep me two Octobers before, wanted to spoil me with presents and lavish his (well, our) money on me in the only way he knew how—in the cheapest straight-from-China store in the mall, just like his mama had raised him.
Well! With that added context, I suddenly began to feel like a goshdarn princess in that ratty little discount store. I directed Nicholas’ attention toward a bodycon dress I thought would look good on me (despite the fabric being thin and the edges all unhemmed).
“Which do you like more,” I asked him, “black or red?”
“Red would be a nice holiday color!” he said encouragingly.
We revisited the rack of sweaters. One of them was beige and had a rabbit pattern on it.
“Do you want a nice boony sweater?” he asked. (Boony is ‘bunny,’ but pronounced like you’ve been living with someone for two years and sharing a brain cell.)
“It’s kind of big, since it only comes in one size,” I said. “But…what do you think?”
“It is kind of big…” he agreed. “But it’s cute, and it’ll keep you warm.” He paused, then gave me a smile. “We’ll get it for the boonies!”
“Okay!” I said happily.
It was a bit of an awkward dance, I’ll admit. In that store full of Things I’d Never Buy, I needed him to like something on me in order to want it myself, and because he cared what I thought, he needed me to like something of my own accord in order to want me to have it. But in the end, we settled on the slinky red dress and the boony sweater.
And so my man bought me a dress for $10.99 and a sweater for $13.99 and the whole thing had been his idea. Boy, did I ever feel like the most pampered queen to ever have been spent less than twenty-five dollars on!
“Maybe you could wear the dress to dinner tonight!” Nicholas said enthusiastically, then kindly added, “If you want to.”
I did want to. My husband had bought it for me, by golly!
We went back to the hotel, and I changed into the dress so I could wear it to dinner. I also gladly wore it while he…well, never mind that.
In any case…I love my cheap-ass dress, and I love my cheap-ass sweater.
i was just informed that canadian $100 bills are scratch and sniff and smell like maple. literally sounds like something you’d make up just to mess with an american
“i noticed i got a lot of new followers lately, so i just want you to know that i believe x and i believe y and i support x and i reject y. and if you disagree with me? you’re more than welcome to unfollow right now. bc you’ll never change my mind, and you’ll probably hate all the things i post lmao 😎✌️”
no. stop. that person with different beliefs was willing to follow you for whatever reason, can already see with their eyes the beliefs you post about, and did not immediately decide they don’t like you. they can unfollow you on their own later if they want to. do not immediately drive them away without cause. you might change their mind on things. they might offer you a new perspective, or at least some nuance to an issue you never considered. even if you and they never change one another’s minds on the topics where you disagree, you have lost the valuable opportunity to remind one another that you are not mortal enemies, you are just people with different beliefs and perspectives, and that, believe it or not, you can still be friends. yes this is the website where people scrutinize the op of a one line joke so they can report to everyone “HEY, OP SAID IN THEIR BIO THAT PINEAPPLE BELONGS ON PIZZA, STOP REBLOGGING THEIR JOKE THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH PINEAPPLE ON PIZZA” but you don’t have to be like that. yes you are allowed to curate your own experience, yes you have the right to choose what you see on your dash, but listen. this is how we got the american two-party divide. unless someone is actually bothering you, you do not need to preemptively shove them away. because do you know what the person you shut out will walk away with? “geez, i guess people who believe x and y really are that callous and closed-minded and automatically don’t like people like me huh”
all right council. why do you think this acquaintance randomly started messaging me very aggressively friendly-like, like if he saw I viewed his message but didn’t reply right away he’d send a follow-up, and then he was like “omggg we should hang outttt” then he said “can I ask you something random?” and I was like “yea haha sup?” (bc it was clear he had some sort of endgame so I figured this was the big reveal) and then he asked:
“do you smoke at all?”
and then when I said “no lol why?” he ghosted me
so. what do you think was up with that. curious to hear your theories
Yesterday I “practiced” taking the wrong highway exit. Today I “practiced” getting stuck behind a malfunctioning train crossing and having to reroute.
I was afraid of driving, because I was afraid of those kind of things happening to me and not knowing what to do. But those things happen to anyone who drives, even people who drive a lot—especially to people who drive a lot, because they drive more—so it’s important to learn how to navigate unexpected situations and learn you don’t have to freak out when they arise.
My GPS told me which way to go instead when I took the wrong exit. My GPS didn’t help with the stuck train crossing, but I just followed where the car in front of me decided to go, and found another way.
Everyone gets honked at or needs to honk eventually. Most people get a ticket at some point. A lot of people will get damage to their car or accidentally damage someone else’s car. They’re unlikely on a personal scale, but common on a large scale. My goal can’t be to avoid anything unideal ever (because the best way to do that is to not drive at all, which I was doing). I just have to keep driving and learn that when unexpected things come up, I can develop the confidence to figure out what to do in the moment.
Does it mean anything that I got home from work an hour ago and immediately laid on the carpet and went on my phone and I only just now got up. I assumed this was a universal struggle because everyone always says they use their phone too much and everyone procrastinates, but lately I’ve been wondering if I experience this to uh…an abnormal degree.
One time my college roommate asked me to take out the garbage and I said “uh…can I do it tomorrow…” and then she said “never mind, I’ll do it” and then I had to prove I could do it so I said “no I’ll do it!” and was Pikachu face to realize it only took five minutes max 😅
The amount of underwear and socks in my daily rotation has shrunk 4x. Because before I was married, I used to do laundry um…once a month…basically when I was left no other option…but now we do it weekly. And it’s really hard to do it alone but it’s okay doing it together, unless he expresses concern that I will have a hard time doing it alone, in which case WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT IT’S ONLY LAUNDRY YOU THINK I CAN’T DO LAUNDRY?? Now I have to win first place in laundry to prove I can accomplish basic tasks!!!
But nobody likes doing chores and everybody puts things off. So I thought that was normal?
I just assumed everyone struggled with this. Or at least 50% of people. But that can’t be true, because whenever I text people, most of them generally text me back in a shorter period than three weeks (with some exceptions)
I’ve always laughed off my behaviors, especially during high school and college, where everyone procrastinates and everyone calls themselves lazy and it’s in vogue to be sleep-deprived and malnourished because your life needs to be falling apart a little for the aesthetic…but now that I’m grown, I feel like these tendencies…may not be normal in most adults?
Anyway I’m gonna go eat dinner finally and then do the things I was actually planning to do tonight…maybe…no I will…
