What Happened to the Store?

When I wrote a column for the newspaper, I couldn't admit how much I hate to shop—that would have upset our advertisers. But now I'm free to tell you about some of my mishaps. I think the very worst time was when the store disappeared. It simply was not there anymore. It was gone. Vanished.

All of our children had finished college, I had started working full time, and I felt newly-rich. I actually enjoyed shopping. Marion and I were in Atlanta for the weekend and went to Lennox Square. I found a marvelous store and a clerk who knew her merchandise. She helped me choose a black blazer, a pair of pants, and two pleated skirts—all wool. All four pieces became some of my favorites and I wore them until they became hopelessly out of style.

A few weeks later, in Atlanta again, we went back to the store- or tried to. We agreed on where we thought it had been. But instead of a clothing store, we found a brick wall. We walked all around, looked up and down, back and forth, to and fro. The store was simply not there! All that remained was a brick wall!!

What is so strange about this situation is that when we were there earlier, we saw no SALE signs, no GOING OUT OF BUSINESS signs, no liquidating the merchandise—the store looked as if it were having a normal day.

This is only one of my experiences in finding clothes that I loved, wanted to buy more, but was not able to, but it was the only time that the entire store vanished.