Freewrite April 15, 2009
Corinne was walking along the second story walkway of her local suburban mall, searching for a good casual pair of jeans to wear since it was the start of Spring and she wanted the feel of new clothes on her body. Her name was originally going to be Karen, but around month seven of the pregnancy, her mother wanted more flair to her soon-to-be daughter's name. Corinne appreciated the gesture starting in her teenage years as she started to realize that the name Karen felt to her more like a middle-aged school teacher who wore brown pencil skirts and her dyed auburn hair in a bun everyday, assigning students more busywork than actual through-provoking learning material.
As she entered The Gap, the store alarm went off even though she had no tags on her or any recently purchased merchandise from any other store either. "Don't worry about it," the greeter at the store told her. She didn't, it happens all the time. The sensor alarms at stores go off pretty often without so much as perking the interest of most people in the store. It's only when someone looks back with a guilty face or scuffles off like they have to use the bathroom do people give a second look of suspicion.
She passed through the newest merchandise at the front of the store, enacting self-discipline to not try on a tempting light green jacket that she knew she could happily wear for work. She made it past the underwear and body section without so much as batting an eyelash. When she finally arrived at the denim section in the back of the store, she noticed a young girl approximately 15 years of age trying on various jeans. She had a pair on that she was checking while looking at the selection for some more to compare the fits with. The jeans were about one or two sizes too small, causing noticeable muffin-top, and had extraordinary flare at the bottom of the pant legs. Not a particularly flattering look for the 5'2" blonde that also had on a black baby-t with a sequin butterfly across the front.
Corinne tried not to pay any attention to her whilst perusing the sale section for some jeans of her own, but she could not help but notice the teen in her periphery. It was especially difficult to ignore the cellphone conversation she was having with one of her friends apparently about a party last weekend where she got "sooo high" and had "sooo much fun." She didn't need to know that her drunk friend puked in her sweater in her backseat because he thought it was a bag. She also didn't need to know that James, the boy she thinks is "sooo cute", was fingerbanging her in the hallway but stopped when someone came around offering a beer and conversation about how lame their math class is. They tried to play it off by slowly moving his hand around to the side and eventually out of her pants, but she thinks that he noticed.
After sufficiently being disgusted with the youth of her town, Corinne decided that The Gap wasn't the store for her today and decided it was time to head home and start cooking dinner. She was going to make a chicken alfredo with rotini pasta and a side of buttered artichokes. She got home and kissed her boyfriend James hello upon entering. He wanted a little something more, she could tell by the way his kisses hung there instead of just ending cleanly, as kisses tend to the more you kiss your significant other and establish a rhythm and technique, but she just couldn't muster up the desire to get into the mood for much more than that.
He asked her, "what's wrong?"
She replied, "I hate when I can't find jeans."
