Treasure hunting

I hate to shop. Never liked it. Just ask my mother. 

Whenever we visited my grandmother in Boston — traveling from our home in the hinterlands of Vermont — my mother would drag me and my sister on day-long shopping expeditions to Filene's or R.H. Stearns, where she would sequester us in a small dressing room while she tried on what seemed like 50 dresses at a time. It was more boring than church.

Worse, she rarely wore the items that she purchased. I remember one particular dress — dark blue and resembling a Naval officer's uniform — that cost $98 (in 1974) at Stearns. She wore it five times (I counted). Or the 100 percent polyester pantsuit in a gray/brown floral print, which belongs in the Worst Dressed section of the Fashion Hall of Fame, along with the patent leather go-go boots to match, all from Filene’s. She might have gotten away with it on the streets of New York. But in Vermont? It looked like a costume.

Not surprisingly, my sense of fashion now tends toward the practical (boring). If a pair of capris and a shirt can’t be worn on a bike as well as to a business meeting, they aren’t worth buying.

Which makes it hard to explain the allure of TJMaxx, the fashion-for-less department store that sits in a corner of downtown Rutland. At least once a season, I find myself wandering the aisles and digging for bargains in not just women's clothing but also in housewares, linens, picture frames, and kids' toys. It's the first stop on the Procrastination Express. 

What makes it so enticing? Does it spark the latent hunter-gatherer in me? Is finding a softshell Patagonia jacket for $49.99 — hiding amongst the women's pajamas — like coming across a rare Goji berry in the forest?

Or is hunting for bargains just a game? A treasure hunt for grown-ups: Patagonia capris for $19.99, Lole Bermuda shorts on the clearance rack for $10, hand-milled lavender soap from Provence for $4.99, a Le Creuset Dutch oven regularly $250 marked down to $49.99, kids' Levis with rhinestone-capped rivets for $14.99, Waterford crystal candleholders for $12.99. 

It feels like plundered booty.

So if Andy asks me what I did today, I won’t admit that I wasted time. Instead, I’ll say I went treasure hunting.