Suburban Kvetch

A compliment 14.2 years in the making

My daughter and I went on an impromptu, quick shopping trip today for a few things she needed. After she’d tried on no fewer than fifty items to arrive at five, I suggested we meander through the store just to see if there was anything else either of us desperately needed.

“You know,” I said, “I have a craving for a purple purse.”

“Purple?”

“Yep, purple.”

She walked through the aisles holding up bags that ranged from mulberry to eggplant and every edible color in between. Nothing was quite the right shade, the right quality or the right style. We checked another part of the store and I tried on something marked as blue but was clearly more dark lavender.

“Whaddaya think?”

“It’s weird,” she said. “You would never carry this.”

I set the bag back on the shelf. I wound through racks of clothes and met my daughter in an open space and we headed toward the check out.

“Hey,” I said. “Was that a compliment?”

“You mean that the purse was weird so you’d never carry it?”

“Yeah.”

“Uh huh.”

Obviously my sense of style, often disguised under a hair clip and oversized White Sox T-shirt, has not gone undetected. Not to mention, she was spot-on about the purse. It was weird.

My work is (just about) done.