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I admit that I like to shop and that might be because I started rather early.

My two aunts, Annie and Mary, would take me and my cousin, Marilyn, to the stores every Saturday afternoon. We would wait anxiously for my aunts to finish up at work and we climbed into the car, anticipating what we would spend with our meager allowances. We didn’t have much money, but it wasn’t about that. It was about the endless possibilities.

We would ditch my aunts the moment we were out of the car. We loved them dearly but Annie was somewhat confrontational, would often argue with store clerks (why are the small size shoes on the top rack, where short people had to stretch and tall people had to stoop to the bottom - or try to reduce an item beyond the sales price).

The stores were clustered on Main Street, one store after another. We started out at Johnson’s Book Store. We weren’t terribly interested in the first floor, which sold mainly hard cover books and the latest best sellers. Instead Marilyn and I would trudge upstairs, where everything was on sale.

There Marilyn and I could get copies of dated magazines for a nickel or a dime. Marilyn would choose publications that could teach her something, Life, Look or Reader’s Digest, while I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Vogue or Harper’s Bazaar. I was mesmerized by the glossy pages, models in French braids, or beehive hairdos, wearing coral sand, or pale turquoise, or cherry red wrap dresses, sugary pink poodle skirts or voluminous petticoats. Their mouths were scarlet, with matching fingernails and toenails (obvious from their peep toe shoes). I’d take the magazines home and cut out the pictures, post them on my bulletin board, so when I had more money, I would know exactly what I wanted to buy.

Our next stop was the department store. For two pre-teen girls, a department store was a magical place.

The smell of roses filled the first floor and Marilyn and I immediately sprayed ourselves with the latest perfumes displayed on the shiny glass shelves. The store clerks indulged us as we sampled Shalimar, White Shoulders, Arpege and Tabu, spraying rather liberally. We browsed the make-up, the newest blue red lipsticks, the black eyeliners, the pancake foundations, the crème mascaras, the soft rose and coral rouges. We couldn’t afford any of it (we weren’t even allowed to wear make-up but when the time came we would remember what Elizabeth Arden was selling and try to match it in the drugstore with Maybelline).

Up the elevator and not just any elevator. This mahogany box was operated by a uniformed attendant, who called out the floors. We got off at the junior department, examining racks of clothing, blue jeans, brightly patterned dresses, circle skirts. I would buy a blouse, usually in a pastel color, while Marilyn, the more practical one, would settle for a wallet or a leather cinch belt. We watched in awe as the sales clerk took our cash, deposited it in a little box, which was attached to a wire, and the little box would be whisked away, traveling along the wire in the air, near the ceiling, returning a few minutes later, with our change.

From there we would go up to the furniture department. Of course, we could never buy furniture but we loved to gawk, as we stood outside the velvet ropes, gazing at our dream bedroom, a turquoise rug, blue wallpaper decorated with tiny records, drapes with diamond patterns, a rose chenille bedspread, and a Formica and chrome make-up table.

Then we were off to join our aunts for afternoon tea on the top floor. We always passed the candy department, where chocolates were handed out on a silver tray for sampling. Somewhat exhausted we sank into the padded booths and examined our purchases. Our two aunts would come sailing in with their shopping bags (gagging from our perfume). My aunts would roll their eyes at my impractical choice – didn’t I realize how dirty a blush blouse would get? They would share what they had bought, pajamas, gloves, scarves, thermal underwear.

We drank our sweetened tea, devoured scones, tiny brownies, watercress and cucumbers sandwiches, as my aunts argued over who had nabbed the greatest sale.

My aunts have long ago passed and so have the department stores. They have gone the way of malls, and more stores now specialize, make-up stores, furniture and clothing stores, and jewelry stores and, if you want to meet for tea, the best you can do is the Food Court. Or you can try Starbucks, where hardly anyone looks up from their devices.

These days I order a lot on line. But cameras haven’t perfected the subtleties of color – my canary yellow sweater turns out to be a mustard shade, my scarlet red blouse is really rust and my apple green shoes arrive as a drab olive.

I spend a lot of time at the post office.

I miss the department stores. I miss the elevator man, who called out the floors, the cheery sales clerks, the waitresses in the tea shop with their little starched white aprons, the ladies room with their cushioned couches and the matrons, who would hand you a towel and offer you some hand lotion. 

I miss that you could spend a whole day in a department store, where you could find such beautiful things.

Somerset Maugham said, “The impact of beauty is that you feel greater than you are, so for a moment you walk on air and are wrenched out of yourself.”

Those department stores made me feel exactly like that.

Image: By anyjazz65 via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)