Lindsay and I went to the Southern Women’s Show on Friday, along with our favorite tagalongs, Ali and Eli.
Eli was just slightly embarrassed to be one of the only guys there.
But it didn’t take him long to get over his embarrassment and enjoy being the center of attention:
The Southern Women’s Show definitely has it’s pros and cons.
Con: You are basically subjecting yourself in VERY close quarters to every pushy mall kiosk worker known to man.
“can I rip the hair off of your arms with my super special wax??”
“would you like me to clean your rings?”
“Try my super duper $40-a-bottle juice that makes you perfectly healthy in every way!!!”
“Sham-WOW!!!”
Pro: You get tons of free food samples.
“Try my dip!” (at least 15 dip booths!!)
“Free milk!!” (Ali really liked strawberry milk, by the way. YUCK.)
“Free Ice Cream!”
“Fudge sample, anyone?”
“Free Meatballs!!”
One of the things that has changed over the years, though, is that they don’t have a whole different section where they give free samples of every toiletry, makeup, and any other sort of product known to man. I think it has been quite a while since they did this – since I was a little girl – because I remember it being hosted by Big B Drugs. That HAS been a while.
One of the other things that was missing this year was a definite improvement – there was not a single plastic surgery booth with MUCH larger-than-life pictures of breasts – before and after. AND pictures of much gorier plastic surgery. So long, too-much-information pictures.
I also learned a VERY important trick for Ali – she is unbelievably and perfectly content with a small sample cup and a bunch of little pieces of some sort of food item. She spent a good 45 minutes putting them, one by one, into the cup; and then moving them, one by one, back onto her stroller tray.
I actually utilized this technique again on Monday when I had to go up to work and interview someone (I know -really professional of me to interview someone with my 21 month old in tow, but to make her look more like a legit employee, I dressed her in her Slappey Morale Booster shirt). I bought Ali a pack of gummies out of the break room, got her two styrofoam cups, sat her in a chair, and she was completely happy for the whole interview. Nice!!
So, now that Ali has been to the SWS, she is officially a Southern Woman. And Eli is officially an I-get-drug-around-by-my-Mom-to-places-boys-shouldn’t-have-to-go little boy.
Yay for a SWS post!! Tell Lindsay I’ll gladly keep Eli next year so he doesn’t get subjected to the estrogen overload again, although he looked like he thoroughly enjoyed it.
I was talking it over with another friend who has been to these for several years running, and we figured out the bottom line difference. Before, it was about free samples of everything, so that you would then go to the stores and buy the products. Now, it’s about getting you to spend all your money there at the show on products you’ve never seen and don’t really need. To me, even though I had fun, it wasn’t the best. I hope it’s better next year. I’m glad y’all got to go and had fun.
oh no..pushy kiosk people..you are braver than I!
That’s funny. My poor little Eli… I bet daddy steps in to forbid it in a few years. He’s still scarred from the hours he had to spend in Hancock Fabrics growing up and he’ll probably want to shield Eli from this type of trauma :).