Shopping Online

I almost titled this “Shopping Online in the time of Covid” but the reality is that online shopping has become the norm for me.

 I don’t know about anybody else but I am finding that retail shopping has changed.  In my childhood we had large department stores and, for the most part, those large stores provided one stop shopping from clothes, to fabrics, to hair products — one even sold saddles!  Going “downtown” on a Saturday (which we did every two weeks) would result in a lot of shopping— so much that many times we used a delivery service called Merchant’s Delivery (little dark blue vans) that would deliver our purchases to our homes.  We never had a problem finding what we wanted.

Fast forward to today.  I don’t like shopping like I used to — blame it on the mobility issues — so when I go I want to go in, get what I need, and leave.  I am finding more and more that I am having difficulty finding things — while there are things in the store, there isn’t the variety that we used to have and not necessarily the brands that I use.  So, I turn to the internet and search until I find what I want.  I was beginning to think that a lot of things I use have just been discontinued but that isn’t the case — they are just not available in stores.  I understand that stores don’t have “back rooms” like they used to where they kept more stock — there is no more stock — what you see in the store is what is in the store — period.  It is sad and disturbing.

 I miss those large, glamourous department stores.  I remember the smell when we would walk into the air conditioning from the hot street.  Many times we entered the store through the small leather goods department, where my aunt worked, and the lush smell of the leather would seem so strong.  We walked through the cosmetics and the perfume departments and those heady smells would take our breath away — sometimes almost literally.  We ate lunch in the small cafe called The Chuck Wagon because the formal dining area — The Camellia Room — was reserved for fancy things like bridesmaids luncheons and debutant brunches.

Joske’s — the Biggest Store in the Biggest State until Alaska became a state then it was the Greatest Store in the Greatest state — We had to adapt!

The Camellia Room — I only ate there once when I was an adult 

Had my hair done there several times.  My aunt worked there and  used the salon — the stylists name was Larry.  He wanted to cut my hair into a pixie.  I didn’t let him.  I was about six.

But, we are living in the time of Covid and I no longer have the energy or interest to plod through stores these days.  These large department stores are a thing of the past — Neiman-Marcus is declaring bankruptcy as I type — gone are the smells and sights that invoke those wonderful childhood memories.  My blue delivery vans are now gray with a turquoise swoop that says “prime” or are brown and say UPS or maybe they are a plain truck that says nothing.  But, they bring me my goods — and now dog food and some groceries. — and they do provide a bit of excitement — like waiting for the mailman.

Will things go back to the way they were before?  I doubt it.  Retail was suffering to begin with and I don’t think this situation is doing it any good. I can’t imagine the department stores are suddenly going to morph back to MY past and become something like Joske’s or Frost’s or Neiman-Marcus again.  I think that is a thing of the past, something that can’t be explained to our children — the products, the smells, the very feel of the places.  It was a thing of past generations and our grandchildren are going to reminisce about Prime trucks and browsing the internet to shop.  So sad.