So to do the shoe shopping, my aunt took me to this JC Penny that was near the restaurant. Now it was a good thing that we were going shoe shopping since I've probably been wearing the same pair of shoes for eight to ten years now. But for me, going clothes shopping or shoe shopping is extremely uncomfortable. This stems mainly from the experiences I've had going clothes shopping with my grandma. Going clothes shopping with my grandma was a living hell. And unfortunately, my aunt has inherited some of my grandma's less than desirable character traits. She's not quite as bad as the way my grandma was, but there are some times when she can come pretty damn close. And when it comes to clothes shopping, both my grandma and my aunt seem to get a certain way.

When we got down to the men's level, my aunt looked around and mentioned how many good sales there were, and that's when I started to get a bit more... agitated. I just wanted to get a new pair of shoes and get the hell out of there, not shop for an entirely new wardrobe. So I found a pair of shoes that looked good and were my size, and I tried one of them on. I told my aunt that it fit perfectly, but she responded like she didn't here me and asked, "They're too big?" That's when I kind of snapped at her and told her they fit just fine. After that she said, "I don't appreciate that tone!" I apologized, but there's a part of me that wishes I had said, "I don't give a damn!" I mean I'm in my late twenties, so I think I have a right to sound pissed off when I actually am!

Of course on the other hand, I could see that I had gotten just a little too worked up. We managed to get the new shoes and get the hell out of there. A little later in the car, I apologized to my aunt again and told her the reason I got ticked was because I was reminded of clothes shopping with my grandma. That only seemed to make things worse. She said something like, "I wasn't being like grandma" and after a bit the conversation just kind of died out. The thing is that my aunt knows how bad my grandma was in some aspects and is aware that she's taken on some of her more negative traits. But she'll sometimes also get a little defensive when people make that comparison. My dad's kind of the same way when my aunt or someone else tells him that he has some of the more negative traits that my grandpa had.

So I guess I probably shouldn't have said anything about it when we got back into the car. But after that point there was only silence during the whole ride back. I just sat quietly reading the new manga volume I had gotten. My aunt seemed to be in a better mood by the time we got back to town. So we seemed to leave things on pretty good terms. This'll probably be one of those family events that we never speak of again. I'm certainly not going to bring it up again. I'm also probably not going to go shopping for clothes or shoes with my aunt again if I can avoid it.