The Dreaded Easter Dresses

Friday, April 10, 2009

I have two vaguely related things on my mind today.

First, why is it so hard to find modest clothing for my teenage daughters? It drives me CRAZY! I have dubbed this dilemma the triple shopping threat. It is nearly impossible to find clothes for Maddie and Katie that are 1. modest, 2. attractive, and 3. affordable. We almost always have to settle for two out of three.

Retailers, pay attention! I know we are not the only ones out there! I hear other moms and teenage girls complaining about this all the time, and they are not just women of our same religious faith.

Last night the girls and I scooted over to Macy's to try to find Easter dresses. Between the two of them they tried on nearly 50 dresses. We already know that none of the dresses will have sleeves, and the girls are resigned to wearing one of these little beauties with whatever they buy.

Totally shrugalicious, no? So we were just hoping for something close to their knees that didn't show off their lovely lady bumps. Nearly impossible I tell you! They tried on so many adorable dresses that just didn't meet our standards. And frankly, I don't think our standards are all that outrageous. These girls are 14 and 15; they don't need to show off cleavage or miles of leg!

Sigh. Step off box.

The second thought I had was also prompted by our shopping excursion. The dressing rooms in juniors had a line, so we took the dresses the girls wanted to try on and glided up to the lingerie dressing rooms which were empty.

Like I said, they tried on a pile of dresses, but we did hang each one back up and then put them on the clothing rack in the dressing room entry. While I was looking for another size, a sales lady came in the dressing room and told my girls they needed to take all of the dresses back down to Juniors.

When they told me it kind of made me mad. I don't like sales people treating my girls like sub-customers, and it happens pretty often. I said to leave the dresses and I went to pay for the two they had finally chosen (too expensive, attractive, not as long as I'd like but close) and the saleslady asked me if I was planning to take the dresses back downstairs.

I said "no, I wasn't."

Then she sighed and said she hoped I would because there was no one else up there to tend the register. The first thing that went through my mind was a big ole, "not my problem," The second was, "so call someone from juniors to come get them," and the final though, I'm sorry to say it took me so long, was, "why not just help this tired lady out?"

So the girls and I took the dresses downstairs. And although the attendant at the juniors dressing room had been rude earlier, and I didn't like the lingerie lady much either, I still think (putting aside all theories of customer service) it was the right thing to do.

Barnaclebutt