V. S.

Today I'm steamin' mad.  Last Saturday, Emma and I went to the University Mall.  We had occasion to walk from one part of the mall to another past a store I hate, V. S.  I instructed Emma to look across the aisle while we walked past.  I did the same. 

But on the way back, I had a shock.  V. S. is moving.  It will no longer be in a little alcove down by Nordstrom's, easily avoided.  It's now going to be about two shops down from Dress Barn.  Right across from a game store.  With a store front twice the size.  Depending on how they construct it and where you're standing,  come Christmas, you might even be able to see in the store when you're standing in line for your kid to see Santa. Nice.

What ticks me off the most is that I know a lot of women will, with me, feel upset about the move.  But they shop there.  Now I don't, I don't even look at the windows or set foot in the store for any reason.  But others will be upset, yet are too ignorant or stupid to make the connection that their financial support of the store makes possible the move.

You can not click your tongue at the advertising, then shop there and despair that the world is going to heck in a hand bucket.  No one asked for a vote in where stores like that go in, but in a capitalist situation we vote with our dollars.  If you shop there, you can not also complain when V. S.'s presence becomes more ubiquitous.   You can not complain about the catalogs, you can not complain about the TV ads, you can not complain about the annual porn fashion show.  You are supporting them!

As my children are approaching teenage years, I feel angry that this store will stand in the middle of the mall, a beacon of temptation to my sons and a degrading example of an impossible comparison for my daughters.

And though I've been completely forthright and moderately insulting, if this makes you mad, will you join me and stop shopping there?  I promise you can find great bras at other stores, too.