today i had more success at finishing my shopping than yesterday. i located and purchased the one remaining xmas gift for doc — the one in whose pursuit i had the “bitch experience” at town east mall last night and i think that i also forgot to mention that the traffic was so terrible (like dorothy parker said “this was fancy terrible. this was terrible with raisins”) that it took me about 55 minutes to get out of the mall parking lot and home, which is only about six miles total — at the dallas galleria, and although i was dreading driving over there and trying to park and navigate through the hordes of rich folks, it was surprisingly calm for two weeks before christmas. (boy howdy, that was one hell of a run-on sentence!) the salesdrones at the galleria kiosks have apparently been instructed to snag passersby by any means necessary to bolster their holiday sales. they were very agressive, almost uniformly so. a woman at a skin care products kiosk stepped in front of me as i was walking past and said, “ma’am, can i ask you a question about your skin?” in a way that made it clear that my skin was dry, alligator-like, ugly, blemished, and in desperate need of the kind of help that only her $180 sea weasel placenta sugar scrub could rectify. a dude at a jewelry kiosk (ugly jewelry, at that) accosted me and tried to grab my upper arm while intoning in a low voice “i have something very special to show you, miss.” yeah, i bet you say that to all the girls. what do you say to these people? it’s not in my nature to be rude and ignore them. i think i usually say something like “no thanks” […]