"what are you worried about? come on, let's just go look, it really looks like your kind of style. "
jacob and i are at the mall, looking for a prepaid cell phone. jacobs sister anica is coming to visit and her cell phone carrier doesn't give service in hawaii. we've just passed the kiosk where they sell the double layered wrap-around skirts. i've been looking at these from afar. very far off, generally, because the israeli saleswoman is too good a saleswoman. i have no defenses. my plan was to look and look and then maybe approach the seller at the farmers market. she's american and not as likely to convince me that i need this many right now! my plan has been to craftily buy one at the 40 dollar asking price (i did get close enough to the farmers market stall to ask that) and then craftily make my own for much much cheapah.

i have to tell you a little bit about me and haggling. when i bought my old car, (the new one that i had for a year) i spent a lot of time getting a lot of advice from a lot of different people on how to look like i knew what i was doing and talking about so that i wouldn't get ripped off by a salesperson. i even did some role playing. then i walked into the car dealership, took a deep breath and said, "i really don't know what i'm doing, please don't take advantage of me." thats it. thats all there is to know about me and haggling.

so we stop and say hello to the very beautiful tiny bouncy sales lady. she's the type of girl that makes everyone feel like they too can be beautiful and tiny bouncy. she shows me with a twirl and a whirl how easy it is to make this and this style. flipping the fabric and posing for a second before whipping the design into a completely different shape. oh i'm totally smitten. and besides, today there are sales and discounts (some skirts have a sale, some have a discount). and what color do i like? oh blue? oh yes, she thought i'd like the skirt, because i look like her (i couldn't look less like her but of course i swallow that because i think she's beautiful) and she likes the skirts better. and she has a perfect blue one just upstairs...

when she comes back down i've already fallen under the spell of a very deep pink one. bright solid colors make me weak at the knees. i usually have a small desire to ingest them. she pulls out a solid blue one too and it's time to see how much they are. while she was gone, jacob asked me "how much do you want to pay?" he's noticed that there aren't any price tags. well, with the sales and discounts the prices definately vary. " if you buy two, you can have a third one free! all for 100 dollars." but i've seen them for 40 dollars and wasn't planning on spending more than that and besides, i was really just going to get one. how much is just one? "well, you're really just interested in these two, right? well i'll tell you what. if you buy these two, i'll give them to you for 80, and these are my favorites!"

now, that is a 50% off the "original" price of the skirt, and those are such succulant colors, and ok. i'll get it. " of course you'll get them." said with a smile. then, maybe i'd like a dvd with another 80 ways to wrap this skirt? no no. i don't need that. ok ok. she rings me up looking very carefully at my id to make sure that i'm using my own debit card, and then says, would i like to just buy a dvd for a dollar fifty so that her register will come out evenly? i've got two dollars, great two dollars for a dvd. so i bought the dvd that i just said i didn't want. and i walk away with my two beautiful new skirts, laughing at myself, vowing to avoid all kiosks for the rest of my life. i'm aware again of this weakness (awarness is the first step right?) which kind of pleases me because sometimes i feel jaded and battle scarred. while jacob gives me another run-down on bargaining, i bask in the glow of deep silky colors and think of the quote on keely's myspace page: 'the sky is all sorts of pink pink pink pink'