After the unexpected decadence of a weekday Balthazar lunch, Schmio and I thought we’d step into Miu Miu just for fun, just to see. On the sale rack, I fondled a luxe black bunchy pleated skirt for a good long while before finally looking at the tag. The figure written on it was composed of so many numerals that I was sure it was a barcode number or an item number or something, and it wasn’t till I’d turned the card over a couple of times looking for the price that the penny, as they say, dropped—except that in this case the realization was accompanied by the great tinkly clatter of ninety-nine thousand seven hundred and fifty-nine pennies dropping, because, ha-ha, that was the price.

Back to H&M, then.