New York's best-kept secret ... is out

And I mean out, as in can't breathe for all the discount shoppers taking all my air plus they bring their fucking toddlers/newborns, and then you have the third-world ladies hunched over their carts which breaks your heart because you know you're going to be them in twenty years just give it time and you will never be the Seoul bitch that you most yearn to be in your heart, but you just can't afford their Kenzo and Celine wardrobe, nor do you have the clout that even allows you inside the Bottega Veneta store for those much-coveted woven leather accessories, nor do you have the time, money, and patience necessary for their shiny straight triple-processed hair, flat-out perfect makeup, and plastic surgery, because they've all had their faces bought before their sweet sixteens, and that's a fact.

Then you have the men in the lingerie department, fingering last season's sorbet-colored lingerie and clutching a fistful of sheer Calvin Klein lace-trimmed panties, and this offends you because you're actually thinking the word panties, and this is probably the nastiest word ever, and you mean ever, since you can say every little obscenity or indelicate word with a straight face, but you can never say "panty." It's just impossible. Or if you do, you turn really red, or just bust out laughing. When you encounter this word in a romance novel, it makes you squirm, embarrassed for the writer, yourself, the whole world, sick over the state of humanity, over the fact that such a graceless thing can be uttered so innocently out of so many mouths. But you can only go on about the pervs for so long, as you've already vented about them in the top ten list.

But yeah, there are plenty of dirty old men touching all over the lacy underwear. You wonder if they're shopping for their wives or girlfriends or themselves to support their secret lives as cross dressers, but you know the last scenario is only wishful thinking, and you're a total naive joke if you think it's for the first. Next time you're a mistress to someone who smells like Brach's peppermints and Werther's Originals and unclean winter wool and Copenhagen snuff and he gives you a mint green satin shelf bra with red lace trim, just know he could have only got the thing from one of two places. The first is Frederick's of Hollywood.

The second is, of course, Century 21, which its shopping bag touts as the city's "best kept secret." Century 21 is also ranked by Zagat as the #1 discount clothing store in NYC and the #2 most popular store in NYC. What's the most popular store, then?

I used to love discount shopping. I loved going to the TJ-Maxx, and I will always claim the Buckhead, Atlanta DSW to be the best DSW in the world, but these were civilized places. Fitting rooms were clearly marked, store staff didn't yell at you for every minor infraction, which includes breathing and waiting in line for a cashier, and there was always plenty of aisle space and the shelves were almost always neatly stacked and labeled. Shoe pile-ups were quietly managed by the ever-present staff, and they kept the sample hosiery boxes stocked and at convenient locations.

I remember going here as a tourist. Someone whose judgment I used to trust kept saying it was the best place to get the things you didn't feel like getting in a normal department store with their jacked-up prices, like towels, soap dishes, socks, hose, and the occasional dog-walking shoes. Perhaps because at the time it seemed refreshing to get a bargain after a hard day going around town, shoes at Saks, makeup at Bendel's, tea at Takashimaya, and then by that time, it seemed a fun novelty to fight the crowds at Century 21 and buy half-price slightly-imperfect Wolford tights, which as twenty dollars is not such a good deal anymore.

It was quaint then? It's barely tolerable now. I am grounded for the rest of the year. No more shopping of any kind until after President's Day.