by Ames
S.
amess@sober24.com
I’ve never been much of a shopper. In fact, the very idea of
wandering through aisle after aisle of assorted merchandise is enough to put me
into a narcoleptic state. I thought it was something I’d eventually grow out
of, but it seems to have lingered through the years. I’m not entirely certain
of the origin, but I suspect these feelings are rooted in my childhood, quite
possibly one distasteful afternoon at the age of ten when I was forced to accompany
my mother to Bloomingdales after a friend and I had gotten into my parent’s
liquor cabinet.
We had been careful, taking only a little bit out of each
bottle, but the cumulative effect had put us both in some difficulty. Choking
the mix down, we were giggly for a while, then impervious, bouncing off the
furniture, falling onto the floor. When my mother discovered us, she simply
shook her head.
“Get your coats on,” she muttered ominously, and we looked
at each other with eyes wide, uncertain whether we were about to be sent to Siberia or simply marched around the corner to an
execution site.
After dropping off my friend at his home in a cab, my mother
and I continued on downtown in silence. In retrospect, it would have been
difficult for her to have been too harsh in her assessment of the situation,
given her own proclivities toward afternoon drinking and outrageous behavior,
so I think she was simply mulling things over in her silence. I’m not sure if
she meant the shopping trip as punishment (who could be so cruel?) or whether
she simply didn’t know what else to do with me at that moment, but I’m sure she
had no idea how it would affect me.
So, there I was, still wobbly drunk, and trailing my mother
through a department store, mannequins looming like freakish giants, perfume
sprays erupting like steam, endless rows of folded sweaters like battlefield
trench work, and no place even to sit or lie down. Floor after floor, connected
by an endless network of zig-zag escalators, like wood chippers going up, up,
up, and then down, down, down.
We marched through men’s wear and the jewelry department,
past shoes and handbags, beauty products and things cashmere. Before long, we
were surrounded by coats and outerwear, silk patterned scarves and wool hats. Item
by item, floor by floor, I soon lost track of where I was, where we had come
into the store, following numbly behind in what may have been a precursor to
the many blackouts I would experience in the years to come.
While I haven’t fully recovered, I have gotten a little
better over the years since I’ve been sober, to the point where I was recently
able to offer my services as a chauffer on a shopping expedition organized by
my wife and daughter. It was understood, of course, that I wouldn’t be getting
out of the car, but would – without griping or expressing any other outward
signs of negativity toward shopping – wait patiently at each stop until the
proposed items had been purchased.
Personally, I thought I did very well, smiling my way to
parking spots outside Old Navy, H&M, Banana Republic and a series of other
stores downtown. Some unsanctioned forays for make-up and hair products began
pushing me toward the edge, but I was able to settle back down and make it
through without incident. I even went so far as to accompany my daughter for a
moment into one store where she hoped to find a particular pair of pants.
Looking over, as I stood shell-shocked in the main aisle of
the store, suffering a series of painful flashbacks it seemed, she leaned over
and whispered, “What are you doing in here?”
I looked at her as if she were a stranger at first, her
features only slowly becoming familiar.
“I don’t know,” I responded, shaking my head.
“Why don’t you go back to the car,” she suggested, nodding
her head with reassurance as if she were trying to coax a toddler back into his
seat in the middle of class.
“Yeah,” I said, taking one last look around the cavernous
store, with its racks of clothing and salespeople swarming the aisles. “I think
I will.”
Sitting in the car, with the driver’s seat comfortably
reclined and the radio turned on, safe again in my own little bubble as the
pre-Thanksgiving, pre-Christmas, pre-next Christmas shopping machinery slipped
into gear all around, I realized that while alcoholism may have robbed me of
many things over the years – opportunities missed, desires thwarted,
friendships spurned – shopping was not one of the losses that I regret. And,
while dragging me off to Bloomingdale’s hadn’t ultimately stopped my
experimentation with alcohol it had, perhaps, been more of a blessing than a
curse.