For me, the 1990s are notable for the preparatory chess-like approach that a teenage Megan Jessica Tomlin put into preparing for what was, for her, a signal event in her life: the post-Christmas Boxing Day extravaganza where a hard earned dollar might best be put to salutary advantage, one dollar equalling as many as ten, and the acquisition of notable high fashion a necessary goal for a young woman who wished to be seen as presenting herself well to the world, not just as a Marxist feminist presence and young woman of substance, but as a woman of fashion meant to turn heads.
Yes, dear and constant reader, Boxing Days throughout the 1990s were a delight of immense proportion not just for this callow writer, but for the aforementioned Ms. Tomlin, whose Boxing Days unfolded as follows …
Each Boxing Day at 4 a.m. Megan and I would leave home, to attend at a Denny’s Restaurant, where we might enjoy a breakfast repast, as Megan informed this writer of her plans for the morning, through until noon day. With the required information in hand (and committed to memory), Megan and yours truly set about to acquire garments & clothing of not simply the most sophisticated fashion, but of the most careful design & construction.
Having enjoyed our breakfast at the Denny’s Restaurant, nearest to the retail establishment first on Megan’s list, within which retailer’s premises was contained a particular good, the first good of the day Megan felt must henceforth become a part of her wardrobe, the two of us — father led by daughter — would proceed to the store chosen as the first stop of the day for my acquisition-inclined teenage daughter, waiting patiently in line while the (most often young, and surprisingly, too, often quite churlish) retail staff prepared to throw open their doors to the maddening crowd of eager, mostly young shoppers — accompanied most often by their weary mothers.
At precisely 6 a.m.
At which point, those Doc Martens Megan had her eye on would, as she jostled through the store, making a bee line for the shoes of her choice, and then to the cashier to check out, in order that we might proceed to the “next” retail establishment on Megan’s well-crafted list of winter fashions.
Perhaps now would be the appropriate time to provide a bit of background.
Each Boxing Day, for some weeks leading up to that auspicious day on the retail calendar, Megan would set about to ensure that on Christmas Day a sum of monies totalling exactly $1,000 in cash would find itself into her most deserving possession. Megan’s indulgent grandmother, aunt, uncle, mother, mother’s partner, father, mother’s best friend, cousins, her boyfriend, and her mother’s partner’s children would present different denominations of bills, whether they be tens, twenties or fifties, the sum then of $1,000 in cash in Megan’s hands by late on Christmas Day evening.
To know Megan is to know that Megan is not to be refused.
Of course, one wishes to please Megan, as well — that is a prime directive.
For this writer, to be in the presence of this young, focused, giddily happy young woman for a period of eight consecutive glee-filled and joyous hours, where Megan was kind and thoughtful, generous in her thoughts, focused and political our conversation on how one might best going about changing the world, to share this young woman’s sense of joy and appreciation was, for this writer, throughout the entirety of the 1990s, a most looked forward to event & stretch of hours each year, on the post-Christmas Day calendar.
The final location at which to attend was, for Megan, almost a second home through most of the 1990s, and the single store Megan and I most often visited during the course of the decade was the Aritzia store, in the Oakridge mall. I don’t think there was a time when we were together when Megan and I did not travel to the Oakridge Aritzia store, if only to browse.
Those times are now part of Megan’s and my past, fondly remembered by me as Megan’s last breath of innocence, a time before almost a dozen years at university — or just at the start — a time before a marriage that would take place years later, in her late twenties, before her children were born, and before Megan began inexorably to feel the weight of the world, and the myriad responsibilities of adulthood, on her capable shoulders.
