Mitch Sneed at Large

A mannequin coming to life scare this little boy to death.
Our circulation assistant Kim Smith has started writing about fashion and hit two fashion shows last Sunday. It was great to hear her enthusiasm about what she had seen at Pepperberries and Pepper’s Grille.

As she was filling me in about what happened at these Culpeper businesses, I had a horrible flashback to a traumatic youthful event.

My mother used to take me shopping at in downtown Atlanta, with her friend Dot Henderson. We’d make a day of it, with us taking the Atlanta Transit System bus to the shopping center.

Mom would pack sandwiches in her purse for the bus ride and we’d eat at the grill at the Woolworth’s store for lunch.

It was an event.

But one year this experience turned very wrong, and to this day, I think it’s the single reason I hate to shop and have fashion show phobia.

Shopping is rough on a kid when they aren’t in a toy store.

We must have gone to a dozen stores, but as the shopping spree continued at what back then was one of Atlanta’s largest department stores called Rich’s, they got to looking at undergarments and that was the last place I wanted to be.

I got a bit tired and decided to sit on a pedestal in the women’s clothing section. I leaned back against a mannequin modeling the latest fashions.

Bored to tears, I began running my hands up and down the hose-covered legs on the mannequin. I guess the nylons just felt good against my hands.

But then the leg came to life. The leg began to kick me and the mannequin called me names I had never heard before. I yelped like a whipped pup and cried like a teething baby.

I had wandered into a fashion show that had live mannequins standing on low stages all over the store. I became hysterical. Luckily my mother was in sight and I ran to her and jumped into her arms, the woman I had accosted chasing after me.

As I buried my crying eyes into her secure arms, I had to ask: “Mom, what’s a pervert? I’m not one of those am I?“ I haven’t been the same since. The next year I didn’t make the trip. I started school and tried to forget about the lady with the long smooth, firm legs. It seems like yesterday, but I digress
I still hate shopping. Can you blame me?