RANSVESTIA

older girls and women are wearing. One girl caught a glimpse of my soriority pin and I heard her ask her companion, "What sorority is that?"

At the north end of the concourse there was a display of racing cars which had attracted quite a crowd. I looked at it briefly and then walked across the concourse in order to start down the other side following my window shopping routine. As I did so an incident occurred which very easily could have revealed my true identity. In the crowd of people I had failed to notice a booth at which several men in uniform were stationed. They were members of the Civil Air Patrol and were selling tickets to some program. One of them approached me and solicited a sale saying, "Ma'am, would you care to purchase a ticket to the Annual Air Show of the Civil Air Patrol?" Later I felt quite flattered to be addressed as "Ma'am." That said a lot, I thought, for the completeness of my disguise. At the time, however, I was thoroughly startled. Had I spoken it might have been the beginning of the end. Somehow I mustered the presence of mind and body to reply to his courteous inquiry with a shaking head, a smile as sweel as I could possibly make it, and a dismissing flap of my free hand. I walked on wondering how he had accepted my summary behavior. Had he thought me rude? I had scarcely paused to listen to his question. As soon as I thought proper I paused before a window and looked back. In the crowd I could not find him. All apparently was satisfactory. Satisfied with my accomplishments in in the shopping center which had lasted nearly half an hour I went to my car. There was new adventure to be had elsewhere in the city.

My next destination was another large shopping area known as the Plaza. The Plaza is not a shopping center in the strictly accepted sense of the term. It is very much like a shopping center, however, in that its stores include the kind normally found in shopping centers. There are many women's clothing stores, several department stores, shoe stores, book stores, restaurants, card shops, flower shops, haberdasheries, candy stores and various other specialty shops. There are nearly one hundred stores in all. There are many parking lots on the Plaza but I chose an empty place on the street. The stores on the Plaza are closed on Friday evening so I had no choice but to remain outside. I might add here parenthetically that the weather this Friday evening was quite chilly, the temperature being in the neighborhood of 25 degrees. I window shopped for nearly an hour and a half. Although the stores were closed except for the restaurants and the

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