Twin Peaks

Once again, Adorable Wife has taken to the highway and gone on a shopping binge. Together with Drinkin' Buddy trips are made annually, usually to the shoppers' temple in Osage Beach, Missouri, where an outlet mall exerts a strong magnetic attraction to the polar opposites among us.

But this year is different. They may yet go to Osage Beach, but Adorable Wife and Drinkin' Buddy surprised everyone this year by heading for Tulsa. Yeah, that's right: Tulsa, Oklahoma. Not exactly the first place you think of when asked to name popular venues for hitting the racks.

The difference is that these two fearless browsers aren't looking for Cartier, Armani or Elizabeth Arden. They seek Ross Family Stores, and Tulsa has five. Adorable Wife discovered Ross several years ago and became quite taken with them, wading in chest deep to shop with other True Believers.

Tulsa has all the other names they need as well: Macys, Penneys, Gordmans, all the usual suspects. It remains unrecorded what can be purchased at these stores in Oklahoma that is not on the shelves in Kansas City. The rest of us in the family don't know what Ross carries that cannot be found at Kohl's or Sears at comparable prices here. Perhaps it is simply the act of release: escaping from from the surly bonds of home for a few days. We all would understand.

On this trip our intrepid shoppers found a rustic, log-cabin-style restaurant in the corner of a Tulsa mall, much as one finds the Olive Garden or Mimi's Cafe at the fringes of a shopping center here. The name of this affair was "Twin Peaks" and figuring it to be a steak house or similar enterprise, the girls ventured in. Adorable Wife, not yet through the door, noted the loud music and told Drinkin' Buddy this might not work out. Once inside they were greeted by the hostess, wearing "flimsy" attire, and it dawned on them that the clientele was men-only even though the hostess told them "we do get a few ladies in here."

But not them: out they went. Maybe "Twin Peaks" should have tipped them off but the girls were just hungry, not looking for work. Perhaps this is why they headed for Tulsa though. A town that puts a gentleman's club in a mall is thinking out of the box. They can market. Maybe their merchants operate similarly and have better selection and prices than competing venues.

All I know is, the outlet mall in Osage Beach doesn't have a strip club.