I’ll give you a hint: make someone else do the work
I detest shopping. I especially detest shopping in malls. They seem deliberately designed to be mazes, made all the more confusing by the fact that each one of them, nationwide, has all the same stores only in different configurations. I actually have a recurring nightmare in which I am trapped in a mall, unable to find the exit.
When I finally find the store I’m looking for, it’s no better. I get overwhelmed by hundreds of product options, narrowing those down to something I don’t hate, finding something in my size, and then finding something at actually fits.*
So I was not looking forward to shopping for bras last night. And yet, it had to be done. I haven’t been fitted properly since high school, and my size has fluctuated quite a bit since then; for several years I think I was wearing the right size, but it was probably a fluke, and I’ve lost weight since that time. The last time I bought bras was at TJ Maxx about a month ago, and they do not fit well at all. I decided I needed professional help.
Most of the women I know, whether or not they can afford to shop at Nordstrom for anything else, have told me that it’s THE place to get fitted for bras. And so I gritted my teeth and headed to Nordstrom …
… and had a surprisingly stress-free experience. I found someone to help me, she took me into the dressing room, and measured me. Turns out my band size was one size smaller than I thought, but my cup size isn’t, hence my ill-fitting bras. She asked me what sorts of bras I needed — every day wear, fashion colors, evening wear — and then went and got me some. She explained how they’re supposed to fit and how to tell if they don’t. Based on how those worked out, she went and got me a few others.
All I had to do was stay in the fitting room and try things on. I didn’t have to bump into other customers, I didn’t have to sort through racks of bras trying to find the numbers and letters that correspond to my size, I didn’t have to wander the department to find what I was looking for. Granted, I still got sick of bras after awhile, and it was still shopping so it still sucked. But it was the least stressful clothes shopping experience I have ever had.
*If you’re a guy, you’ll just have to trust me that these ARE NEVER THE SAME THING.