Shopping Mommy’s Closet

On Black Friday, I shopped my ass off without leaving my parents’ house in Jersey. One might assume this means I browsed and bought via mouse and keypad. NEGATIVE. Yesterday’s shopping experience cost me zero in green. How did I achieve this feat? By helping Mommy organize her closet, of course!

My mom is a notorious packrat. This made ridding her closet of things she hadn’t worn in years a bitch and a half that, upon reflection, requires subsequent posts on:

(a) My plan of attack.

(b) The execution of said plan on said closet.

(c) My first experience selling to Consignment shops, as Mom’s cast-offs have serious re-sale potential.

The terms of my compensation for cleaning Mom’s closet were negotiated as such: I could keep the cash and/or store credit made from selling her No Pile to Consignment and/or Beacon’s. I could also take whatever I wanted in the aforementioned No Pile for myself.

I thought I’d tapped the closet of its unworn awesomeness on prior visits, so I initially expected nothing from the second compensatory condition.

Instead, I got  a Nicole Miller Collection cropped evening jacket… a Nanette Lepore blazer…

…a Calvin Klein Collection copper skirt… and a high-waisted, leather, cheetah-print number that is now perhaps the coolest thing I own.

While Mom’s packrat tendencies made cleaning her closet a two-day process, the experience wasn’t nearly as painful as I’d anticipated. Each piece I tried on had a memory attached to it – a moment recalled by my mother as she saw me in her clothes, a story I listened to as we divided and conquered the wardrobe.

All told, it was one of the most memorable shopping experiences I’ve ever had.

….not to mention the cheapest.