Regional Tastes

Just so you know, not all of last week's moving process was tears and leave-taking. Most of it was not. Most of it was shopping. When one moves into an apartment with not much more than 73 college t-shirts and a set of hand-me-down dishes, there is much to be bought. And if you know me at all, you know that I would rather do almost anything up to and possibly including tearful leave-taking than go shopping.

I am a traitor to my gender in that I HATE shopping. I hate walking around stores not finding what I want to find. I hate finding what I want to find and discovering that I have really really really expensive tastes. I hate finding what I want in my price range and finding a "sold" tag on it. I hate...well, usually I hate all of it except that Husband is a good sport about carrying my purse while I whine shop.

There were a few things that made the moving-to-Texas shopping an exception to my mercantile aversion. The first was that I was accompanied by three handsome men, including the one reclining on the couch above (Boy#4) and another (Boy#3) who was stretched out on the up-and-down-adjustable bed in the corner reading his Kindle. (Best quote from that corner: "I could sit up, but why use my own muscles when the bed will do it for me?")

The second thing that made the three days (THREE!) of shopping kind of fun was that I was not paying for anything, thanks to the perks of working for a big corporation (otherwise known as a signing bonus).

And finally, it was fun because it was like shopping in a whole 'nother country, which I understand Texas claims to be. In the country I come from, we decorate with themes that could be found in pretty much any state in the union. That is to say, we use some themes pulled from nature, some from geometric shapes, some from our imaginations.

In Texas, they decorate with Texas. Period. Notice the rug in the picture above? Cacti, boots, stars, and hats. That pretty much sums up what you will find in every furniture store, everywhere. I have never seen so many statues of horse heads or plaster casts of cowboy boots.

"Hey, look!" Three said of one of the lifelike-horse statues. "You could play ring-toss on this one's ears."

Three was not particularly helpful in the shopping arena, except as comic relief. But you know what? If you're going to shop for three days, you'd better take along someone for comic relief.

It may be Texas, but it's still shopping.