Writers Guild

The SaddleBrooke Ranch Writing Guild is a group dedicated to improving our writing skills. We meet on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month in the La Vista room from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. After discussing a topic on how to improve our writing, we share excerpts from our own memoirs, essays, fiction or family stories.

If you have questions about the club, please contact Nancy Ferris at [email protected].

My trip to the mall

Linda Newton

All week long, I had been planning to go to the mall to do my annual spring shopping. I needed to buy a few clothes for work and shoes. The mall, Park Meadows, is not just any mall, it is a shopping resort with restaurants to fit any taste or budget, play areas for the kiddos, hotels nearby and about 250 stores and multiple kiosks. Wondering about getting your required steps in for the day? Not to worry after spending a day shopping at this mall. Your Fitbit will probably explode because you will far exceed what it can calculate. I told my husband that when I die to sprinkle my ashes over Park Meadows mall – that is how much I like shopping at this place.

I arrived at the mall shortly after it had opened with my game plan and list in order. First, Dillard’s to look for shoes, which is like shoe heaven for me. From there, Macy’s (another favorite), then Ann Taylor and more if I had time and the energy. The mall traffic was not too bad. That was good. I would be able to get things done more quickly.

I began looking at the shoes. Of course, there were several I liked but was not too sure which ones to pick. The patient salesman brought out several pairs, which I tried on. After a few minutes he excused himself to wait on another customer, giving me time to make my selection. After pausing to retry a couple of the shoes, I decided I would wait and think about it a little longer. I went on my merry way, happily checking off the items on my list. Macy’s, check; Ann Taylor, check and on. By then, I was getting tired and ready to go home. As I grabbed my keys out of my purse, I looked down and to my horror, I saw that I was wearing one of the shoes I had tried on! The other shoe was my own. All kinds of thoughts were going on in my mind. Had the salesman believed I had stolen the shoe? Will I be arrested? I tentatively approached the salesman with a contrite look on my face profusely apologizing. He did not seem to be flustered and stated, “I wondered where you had gone, but I figured you would be back.” I then felt so bad that I went ahead and purchased the shoes, both of them. I would say this adds a new meaning to shoe shopping. Like when you buy a car, you usually test drive it for a while before buying. That day, I test drove a shoe.