There's a lot more to my preference for shopping online than my wish to avoid crowded mall parking lots, long lines at the rare cashier desk that's open, and being subjected to music I wouldn't choose to listen to.
I'm talking about the dressing rooms. 
Much as my daughter's reluctance to try on clothes she buys before taking them home can drive me crazy, I understood it last week when I drove over to the local mall in search of a couple of pairs of shorts for myself.
After spending far too long flipping through items on poorly-sorted racks, and making sure that the size tag on the clothing matched the size clothing the hanger claimed to hold, I had a few pairs of shorts in my hand and was headed toward the dressing room. That's when the nightmare began, and I don't mean the part where I saw myself in the three-way mirror, either.
First I had to find an open dressing room, which meant picking my way down the narrow corridor, past little boys impatiently waiting for their moms outside the fitting-room doors, moms yelling at their teenage daughters over the tops of the doors, and racks of unwanted clothing. When I finally found an unoccupied spot, there was nowhere to hang my prospective purchases because other shoppers had abandoned three hooks worth of clothes rather than bring them out to the racks near the fitting-room entrance. There were clothes on the floor, clothes on the built-in bench, clothes everywhere. Nothing was on hangers and nothing was neat.
The whole experience left me more convinced than ever that online shopping--with free shipping, of course--is the way to go. I can try things on in the privacy of my own bedroom, and any mess I make is entirely my own fault.
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