It's that time of the year-Christmas-and off we trot to the mall. We enter an outlet which specializes in cheap t-shirts. The racket is fit to pop my eardrums. A wake up coffee hasn’t helped. It is too early and I am bleary eyed and desperate.
“Would it be possible to turn the music down, please?” I ask a chirpy shop assistant who immediately turns nasty. I have crept over to the sales counter while the teenager is trying on the merchandise. I want to spare her the pain of knowing I have approached a salesperson for any other reason than to pay.
“It is shop policy to have the music turned up high. To attract a crowd.”
The constantly repeated lyrics from which I am denied protection assault my senses:
“Need a shotgun; take control of me.”
The fashionista pokes her weary head out of the change room. Even she confesses the music is doing her head in. The next song is unidentifiable, due to the lack of melody and the expletives. I wait until the coast is clear again.
“I am sorry, but I shouldn’t have to listen to this while I shop. Silent Night usually works well at this time of year.”
The salesperson shrugs and continues to tidy a pile of cheap jeans. She knows I will stay and suffer because the bargains are worth it.
We flee and enter a department store. No one is available to stop the simultaneous blaring of dirty rap music and Oh Come All Ye Faithful on repeat. The sound collision is noisiest in the fitting rooms.
No wonder retail sales are down. It has nothing to do with the GFC and everything to do with the mullet. It was an ugly hair style back in the ‘80’s and it is an ugly fashion statement now. What’s with knee-exposing minis which trail the floor at the back? We find a rack of belly-exposing tops with thigh-length trains and others with drooping side bits. Can’t anyone cut a straight hem?
No one looks good in this stuff, not even genetically gifted teens with tarantula legs and washboard midriffs, like the one in the noisy change room. Mullets belong in the bad taste pig pen along with their best friend the asymmetrical. One-sleeved dresses with graduating hems: if a man walked down the street in a one-sleeved suit with different leg lengths, we might wonder about his mental health. We might search the crowd for a reality TV crew. Either way, we would probably feel sorry for him as onlookers pointed and stared.
Women with taste, rise up and yell, “Enough with the kooky dress ups!”
With Christmas shopping over for another year, we exit the car park before my head explodes. The local expletive-free shopping centre with its yummy food, gorgeous cut-price festive decorations and colourful plants has never looked better.
Peace on Earth.
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