Shopping Report: Garden Ridge

Let me just get right to the point. My wife has gone crazy and has forced me to drive all over creation looking for fake daisies.

As such, we went to the Garden Ridge on Loop 410 in between Culebra and Ingram, then we went to the original Garden Ridge out on IH-35 near Schertz (and as you might imagine, the small town of Garden Ridge). If you aren't from San Antonio, think Michaels or Hobby Lobby, but with assloads of pottery.

We can review this daisy craziness later, but the important point of this post is that, you simply cannot go into Garden Ridge anytime after mid-August because they bust out all things Cinnamon and the smell is simply overpowering to anyone with a near-normal ability to smell. I don't suffer from allergies, but standing within 200 feet of the entry way to Garden Ridge after they have started putting the "Fall Holiday" and "Winter Celebration" collections out, my eyes begin to tear up and I begin having flashbacks of the first time I had to go through gas mask training in the military. No wonder women who do crafts always seem a bit crazy. I mean, just look at Christopher Lowell.

Okay, so aside from the smell, and thankfully, they were only getting ready for the big transition, there are often very interesting people who shop at these places. One time for example, we made the journey and as we shopped around, I encountered a no-kidding, certifiable crazy lady, complete with talking to herself, lashing out at others, and purchasing two shopping carts full of crazy things.

I could fill three pages of the antics that occurred during this event, but I have been trying to ween myself from writing the "F" word, I never use the "C" word to describe private female parts, the suggested sexual actions this woman proposed might be illegal in several states, and without those descriptions, the story just isn't that interesting. But take my word for it, we live among the shoppers of arts and crafts places and I for one am glad in Texas, we can carry concealed weapons, and it isn't illegal to take pictures of weird people.

Which gets me to my point. I have on occasion provided you with photographic examples of "What not to wear", and I'm not quite sure this one falls into that category. This is Texas, and everything in Texas is big. Including our people. Also, Cowboy boots are popular in Texas, so, giddy-up and wear them to church if you care to. Finally, with our close proximity to Mexico and the NAFTA and all that, many women including the hueras find the moo moo house dress to be a comfortable and fashionable design for a day of shopping; but in fairness, this is usually limited to Wal-Mart or perhaps the corner liquor store.

So, as we wandered through our second store in as many hours hoping to find all things Daisy, I tried to avoid looking at anything that would distract me from the main task of getting in and getting the hell out! Sadly, as we were approaching the front of the store in a near attempt to find a spot in line at the cash registers, we nearly bumped into a very arts and crafts oriented lady. In fact, our carts nearly collided because I was suddenly preoccupied with trying to mentally evaluate how I would discreetly get a picture of this without being so obvious as to warrant investigation by store security.

My wife is no stranger to my antics, so she immediately found cause to find the ladies' and left me to maneuver in and out of aisles of various housewares, table cloths, cloth napkins and the like, as I tried to appear as normal a shopper as one can be in one of these freak-farms, while not losing sight of the lady in the blue-Mexican moo moo and pointy shit kicker-like cowboy boots. The only thing that could have been better would if she was wearing a small hat. Not necessarily a cowboy hat to match the boots or a sombrero to match the dress; it could have been a fancy party hat or even a top-hat - she could not have looked any goofier to start with, but it would have really been a gem in my eyes.

So after the brief game of cat & mouse and several sets of cloth napkins that wouldn't possibly match our dining room table, I made a few valiant attempts at capturing this fine specimen on the camera, purely for instructional purposes. Just then, my wife caught up to me and said that she could not find me, what with my stealth techniques of blending in, and covert ways of seeking out three crappy pictures with my blurry, unfocused camera, so she simply looked for the oddly dressed lady in the blue moo moo, and there I was.

We did end up buying some daisies, some glasses and a bag of M&M's, and then we got out!