mall etiquette

It has been really miserable weather here in Christchurch for the last, oh, two weeks [substitute "what feels like eternity"], except for a few days of spring-like sunshine and warmth, which I think made it even worse - just as you begin to defrost a little and to think that maybe this will last, BOOM! back comes the rain, the sleet, the hail, the rain and more rain. We've even had snow but it didn't settle on the waterlogged ground.

Last year this was all kind of fun, because I was living at home with my dad, with (a) zero appreciation of power bills, (b) heated towel rails and such-like, (c) a new-ish house, (d) a clothes dryer, and (e) a car. This year, I have none of the above. My flatmates and I even have rules about not using heaters and so on. I have discovered that freezing cold living quarters are not all that bad if you dress up warm, but no matter how many items of clothing you are wearing, it is impossible to be comfortable if you have cold hands and feet. Fingerless gloves have made studying a whole lot easier, but my feet are ALWAYS COLD.

So, despite the horrific weather today, I went to the mall, for the purpose of investing in WARM SOCKS. My umbrella broke on the way, my jeans got soaked up to the shins, but I no longer have cold feet. I also have very cute feet because this time I didn't get boring black socks.

It turns out that half of Christchurch was at Riccarton Mall today - or so it seemed. And this brings me (in a very circuitous way) to the main point of this blog post:

MALL ETIQUETTE

1) Walking through the mall.

A brisk yet measured walk should be the order of the day. If you are stopping as you go to gaze at shop displays, keep to the left. However, if you are wandering aimlessly through the mall simply because it is heated and you had nothing else to do, it is polite to either keep out of other people's way, or to walk at a more bearable pace for the people behind you. Exceptions will be made for the elderly or those with impediments such as crutches, which brings us to another rule of etiquette: be patient in cases where a slow walk really cannot be helped.

If you are one of a gaggle of teenage girls, try to remember not to walk five- or six-abreast. You are giving your age group a bad reputation.

If you are a teenage boy, repeat this mantra: "Be civilised. Be civilised." Do NOT start beating up another random kid with your friends (as I was unlucky enough to witness). It's not impressive, and the mall, which is not the bad part of town on a Saturday night, is not the ideal location for you to go all Stone Age.

2) The clothes stores.

When I was wandering round the women's clothes department at Farmers today, I became what is termed "boxed in" in dancing and shopping terminology. This simple diagram may explain my predicament.

  X              O              X

 O            ALLIE       O

  X            O               X

[Where X = shopper and O = clothing stand.]

If you are shopping - please! Look out for potential "Allie"s. Don't fence them in. Remember, to them, you are just another shopper, and if you don't listen to "excuse me"s and continue to get in their way, they may take out their frustration on you. Instead, pull aside - perhaps with an apologetic smile - and let them out.

3) The changing rooms.

When it's a busy day, and there is a line of shoppers waiting at the changing rooms entrance, do not - I repeat - do NOT walk in, blithely ignoring the "Limit 4 garments" sign, and proceed to sit your boyfriend/girlfriends outside your door, subjecting each of the 12 items you are trying on to a detailed analysis in front of the mirror at the end of the hall. When you are finished with your garments, hang them on the rack that has been left there for that purpose - do NOT leave them lying all over the changing room so that the next customer has to either hang them up or walk all over them.

So! Hopefully that has all been cleared up, and now we can all actually enjoy the mall.

various

Several things that are too small for one post:

1. I am the proud owner of this t-shirt from cafépress!
Thank you, Stacy, for alerting me to that wonderful website.

2. Recently I have been reading the dictionary. I am nerdy, yes, but this is such a cool dictionary! I invested in a dictionary which is about the size of one of those big old family Bibles. Besides thousands of words, it has word history, editorial notes by experts (eg Richard Dawkins on evolution), usage notes, et cetera. These are some of my favourite words so far:

dybbuk (n.) /'dibek/ In Jewish folklore, an evil spirit that inhabits the body of a living person.

finagle (v.) /fi'naygl/ 1. to manage to obtain something using trickery or persistence. 2. to trick somebody into doing what one wants.

zeugma (n.) /'zyoohgma/ The use of a word to modify or govern two or more words, used in such a manner that it applies to each in a different sense. e.g. She opened the door and her heart to him.

3. I have been enjoying a blog called Pilgrim's Progress. This is the product of a family of two parents, eight kids and a grandad from New Zealand who are travelling the world on a budget for a year - they started in October 2008 and will be back in September 2009. Destinations are, broadly, South East Asia, Mongolia, the UK, Europe... with other places as possibilities to tack onto the end of it. They were recently in Penang, Malaysia, where they hung out for a day with my brother and his family, who passed on the URL to me. Read this blog if you like being amazed and envious.

being a bridesmaid

When one of my best friends told me earlier in the year that she was engaged and she wanted me to be a bridesmaid, I was a) stunned as I hadn't even met her boyfriend; b) honoured and SO happy for her; and c) just a little bit panicky. Last time I was a bridesmaid it was for a very considerate sister who spent a lot of time making sure each of her bridesmaids felt comfortable in the dresses we wore. But when we were at high school, my friend (let's call her Jane Doe) would often tell us exactly what her wedding dress would be like and how her bridesmaids would wear baby pink, baby doll dresses with a white sash. I can think of few dresses less likely to compliment my figure and colouring than that, and so I (probably unjustly) panicked, assuming my friend would be one of those brides who dresses her bridesmaids in clothes that would suit HER and not them.

I panicked even more when she asked me to try on a dress in a store called Portman's that sells clothes in both Australia and New Zealand. I tried it on - a beautiful shiny red - but it wouldn't quite do up, and it came almost two thirds up my thighs. *scream* I think Portman's makes clothes exclusively for ballerinas. My friend gave up on that idea very graciously and looked elsewhere, finally buying dresses at a shop called Ezibuy, and buying two different sizes for me just in case one didn't fit right. My panic has been toned down over the last few months, mainly because I didn't think about it, but today Jane Doe brought the dresses to my house to try on.

Well, I did. The smaller size fits me perfectly and it is BEAUTIFUL. I am so relieved. Over the last year or so I've found it impossible to find a single dress that doesn't make me look like an elephant, and somehow my friend finds one without me even having to try it on first. Here is the link if you want to see what the dress looks like - it is the red one on the right - http://www.ezibuy.co.nz/Search/4103/Burnout_Voile_Dress/36132.htm

THANK YOU JANE DOE! Bring on the wedding (Feb 9).

irrational fear

I'm going to come right out and say it - I am scared of girls who wear huge sunglasses. They sit on the train looking straight ahead and not moving or smiling, and they don't seem to care that in fifteen years time, their children will be rolling around in hysteric laughter at the sight of photos of them. Although I don't find them funny at all, because they make me think of shows like Dr Who - they would be perfect candidates for aliens to possess and turn into zombie-type monsters. How scary would that be, all these girls floating along with arms in front of them squeaking "Exterminate! Exterminate!" and with HUGE mirror-like glasses on. Maybe behind the glasses could be red lasers, or the holes through which their souls were sucked out. Frightening.

So, what's your weird and irrational fear?

By the way, if any of my readers wear oversized sunnies - I am absolutely sure I would not be scared of you.