Day 87: In Which I Totally Hit the Motherload

Friday was a long day. It began at 4:20 a.m.--two hours earlier than my usual weekday morning--and didn't end until about twenty hours later. I won't bore you with all the gruesome travel details, except to tell you that the sprawling Atlanta airport gets more pleasant every time I connect through it (though I don't understand why they number their gates from the END of the terminal instead of from the center, like most other airports--I realized this almost too late as I started to stroll my way to gate A3 with my Au Bon Pain sandwich, only to discover I had to run a half-marathon to get there before the plane boarded), and that I wish people whose feet smell like rotten cheese would keep their shoes on in the airplane.

When I arrived in Hartford, Connecticut, I rented a car to drive the hour or so to my DD's school. But you know I didn't go straight to campus. I had to stop at the mothership, first.

Note that I didn't say "nearest" mothership. See, I've become quite the WM connoisseur. I was in search of Norma Kamali and Max Azria pieces, and it required homework.

There's no easy way to find out which WMs carry the lines. First, I have to google map the motherships in the area in which I'm traveling. Then, I have to figure out which of those stores carried the brands. The easiest way to do it is to look up NK clothes on Walmart.com, put in a specific size, and a zip code. Usually the search offers up a "Limited Stock" message. This message is troubling. It usually means that someone (like me) has returned a piece of clothing to the mothership that was bought online and now it sits, lonely, on some random rack. They often have no other NK or Max Azria clothes at all. I admire the whole "find it in the store" button on the website, but it's very misleading.

There were four possible WMs on my route, but the one in Chicopee, MA seemed most promising.

Now I know where all the Norma Kamali clothes in the WM world live!

I was a madwoman. I was obsessed. I spent a very intense forty-five minutes flinging the clothes in my cart and then trying them on in the fitting room. And I did it while I was en route to visit my sweet daughter at school. After I'd gotten up at 4:20 that morning to drive to St. Louis to catch a plane. Madness!

But look what I'm shipping home:

Yes, it's a whole Queen bed full of Norma Kamali yummy goodness! There is not one thing I bought that I had already seen in St. Louis, where I usually get my NK goodies.

So, do you think it was so well-stocked because Norma herself lives in the Berkshires? Hm. I kinda doubt it, too.

Someone who knows me well needs to tell me that there's no way I have time to stop back by the Chicopee Walmart on the way to the airport on Monday. Because I don't, but I'm obsessed, and I'd like to try.

I did make one small change in my travel clothes as a result of my find--I'm switching out the jeans and sweater I'd planned to wear home on the plane for a new sweater and comfier pants.

No picture from Friday. By the time I remembered it, it was midnight. I was not feeling at all Witty, Pretty, and Bright.

Be sure to comment on your favorite/least favorite ensemble from the last three (!) months to win the books or the giftcard I announced on the blog earlier this week! Do it before noon on Monday, okay?

Hope you're having a terrific weekend full of new discoveries!