How to Break The Rules of: The Fitting Room

While I realize some rules are necessary, if I'm not a fan of them and/or I don't feel they apply to me, I will find away around them or just flat out break them.

For example: Though I completely understand that retailers like Target need to have rules in place for loss prevention (e.g. limiting the number of items their customers can bring into the fitting room at a time to six), I know that I'm no Winona Ryder. So I feel this rule shouldn't apply to me.

Now if you've ever tried bringing more than 6 garments into the Target fitting room a time, you know that their "store associates" (or whatever they call them - I can't keep up with the fancypants names retailers keep pumping out for shelf stockers, cashiers and fitting room attendees) are Nazis about this rule!

I've tried everything to get around this: playing dumb, begging nicely, explaining that I want to see how the various garments mix and match, saying I'm in a hurry, etc., and nothing worked - until I had a eureka moment.

While shopping for purses at Target one afternoon, during the spike in popularity of the hobo bag (translation for men: the really BIG shapeless purses that probably look, to you, more functional for transporting a small child or ammunition and a sleeping bag in war than toting items as small as a wallet, tube of lip gloss and cell), it dawned on me that this was my ticket around the 6-garment rule.

Now when I shop at places that have a garment limit in the fitting room, I grab the largest purse I can find and shove all but the allowed number of garments into the bag. You then proceed to casually walk into the dressing room with your 6 garments and this big honking bag on your shoulder and no one asks any questions. And voila! You can try on everything at one time and mix and match to your heart's content!

My favorite part - it's totally funny and ironic that this works so well because as you pack the purse, you totally look like a shoplifter about to run off with $500 worth of hot merchandise.

Note to self: purchase a Shoplifter Tote from Citizen for next shopping excursion.