Power shopping

Because I am starting a new job soon, my friend Jessica offered to help me shop for some new clothes. She likes dressing up people, she said, and has done it many times before. So, why not, I thought.

The experience ended up being unlike any other shopping experience in my life.

It is a good thing we shopped on Monday night. That meant we had the stores essentially to ourselves. First we went to Banana Republic, which was pretty mellow, probably because it is not that huge.

But after entering the Macy's Men's Store at Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto Jessica stormed all the racks. She methodically went from area to area looking at shirts and pants and would load my arms with whatever item she thought would look good on me.

The store attendants would empty my arms every now and then and start stocking a dressing room. I'd also grab a shirt that could look good on occasion and add it to the pile.

After scouring the entire ground floor of men's designer clothing, it was time to try some of the collection on. I remember stores with limits on the number of items you could bring to the fitting rooms. If Macy's has a rule like that, we definitely broke it. There were at least 20 shirts (long and short sleeved) and a half-dozen pair of pants (jeans and dress pants).

In a race against the clock--Macy's was closing in 15 minutes--I tried on all of the clothes and discovered that there should be more hangers and shelves inside the Macy's dressing rooms for people who shop like this.

A selection was quickly made by Fashion Judge Jessica and clothes were discarded or put on the buy pile. When at the register, with lights already being switched off inside the store and the doors being locked, Jessica asked me to try on one more shirt. I did, but it was see-through, so not my thing. (No time to try on undershirts.)

Several hundred dollars and a Macy's card membership later I was outside with a full Macy's bag and some free hangers. My wardrobe is now well stocked with new clothes.