The dread Merkin squeezes a whole column and a nice payday from the NYTimes out of the fact that she has too much money and time on her hands - she incessantly buys and returns clothing.
I almost never return anything. In the first place, I loathe shopping and do as much of it online as possible. I recently spent several hours in a mall in Paramus and very nearly lost my mind. And the clothes are so ugly anyway, not to mention the standard plain uncomfortable. You cannot buy calf-high leather boots with heels under 3 inches. And all the clothes and shoes seemed to be exactly the same from one store to the next.
Buying clothing is stressful enough, but going back in and returning stuff only reminds me how much time I wasted having my soul crushed by the mall the first time around.
Maybe the situation is better on the Upper East Side, but I expect it's similar if more expensive.
So I'd just as soon donate the clothes to Goodwill. The fact that I never buy fancy couture helps with this - I don't lose all that much money on the deal. And yes, I am willing to pay for the pleasure of not returning to a store.
Ann Bartow I love yah, but I admit I was quite conflicted when you pointed me to this article. On the one hand, I'm flattered that you see me as a sort of antidote to Merkin's foolishness, but I could have done without reading her latest whine and literary name dropping fest. Save the assignments for something more egregious. This time around she was merely gossiping about herself - which does no harm, if you don't count the inevitable gasps of exasperation - she is not trying to devise a grand critique of the Way We Live Now based on Chapstick consumption, or offer evolutionary psychology-tinged explanations on why men disdain women over 45. If she sticks to sharing fashion facts about herself, I can resume the life I knew before I first beheld her jibba-jabba in the New Yorker, in blissful Merkin ignorance.
But if I see her byline in the Theatre section again - it's on!
