Overload

My local thrift store.  Photo courtesy 2nd Mile Center

I had to share a something that happened yesterday.  I was heading out to lunch with another woman from the offioce, walking down to Reading Terminal (a large indoor food market in Philly), and because she didn't have her jacket, we decided to cut through Macy's instead of walking around the building.

I can't tell you the last time I was in a department store, let alone a Macy's at lunch hour, with the big Wanamaker's organ playing in the background and an anthill worth of people milling around.  Why do those stores always feel like it's Christmas?

It stopped me for a second.  All the stuff was just overwhelming, and I realized as we continued our walk that the extent of my shopping in the last few years has been for food or fabric, or at thrift stores.  Being inside an actual, huge retail establishment was weirdly disorienting.

Macy's at Christmas. Photo courtesy Getty Images.

And yet, that kind of shopping used to be a way of life.  Maybe not department stores (at least for purchasing), but I was a happy browser and would go in any store and look around, more often than not coming out with a bag of something that I didn't really need -- and probably just recently unearthed and donated.