211. Shopping with teenagers

I prefer shopping with my son than with my daughters. Yes, I know, I should never admit it. But. With my daughters it is an endless session of picking things up and then putting them down again only to go back to them after a walk around the entire shopping complex. It more or less like this and it is exhausting.

The helpful mother that I try to be says:

‘It looks lovely! Why don’t you try it on?’

The daughter pouts and scowls into the mirror, then turns to me and says:

‘I’m not sure it is the right colour.’

The really helpful mother that I am then answers:

‘They’ve got it in (different colour) over here, do you want to try it?’

This, in turn, is met by a scowl and a frown and some violent shaking of the head suggesting that the helpful mother is simply irresponsible to suggest her daughter wear totally unsuitable items.

‘Honestly, mum! That (colour mother suggested)? On me?’

Here I make the perfectly reasonable comment that daughter indeed has several items of that exact shade of (colour mother suggested) in her wardrobe.

‘No, I don’t. I have nothing like that at all in my wardrobe, (name of sister) maybe, not me. I would never wear anything that ( colour suggested by mother)!’

The girl pulls a face again and then, when I decide to put the unsuitable item back on the rack ...

‘Maybe I will try both of them on! ... You see if I wear it with (mention of one item from an other shop at the other end of the mall) it might be actually quite good ... ... ... Mum? ... ... MUM? ...’

‘Erm, sorry, I was thinking yes, yes, that would go well together.’

Then she disappears into the changing rooms and I will be left to hang around with all the guys, obviously at the beginning of their couple life, waiting for their girlfriends. And I will try to recall when my husband last did that ... and when did I start dropping him off in the man crèche (pub).

‘MUM!’

‘Yes? What is it? ... Oh, yes, that’s nice!’

A twirl, a twist of the hips, a bending of the knee. She is testing the the garment. I have to be appreciative here. I don’t want to have to start a conversation with the boyfriend gang.

‘It’s lovely! Honestly! And the colour suits you, it’s the right size too.’

She doesn’t even look at me. She does an other little move, then she turns abruptly towards me and says:

‘No. I think I’ll try the other one.’

‘The one you said was such a ghastly colour?’

And she pulls the curtain in a sharp movement and I am left with the boyfriends staring at me, shaking their heads.

We then leave the store, only to come back to it later for ‘just an other quick look’ and, strangely after all the rejecting of so many unsuitable items we will leave with bagfuls of stuff.

So when my son said he needed to go shopping I was happy to take him.

‘Let’s go!’ 

And he is right there, ready to go, by the front door. No rushing back up the stairs because he has ‘forgotten something’. I do not need to call on the fashion-and-make-up police (i.e. father) either.

We get there and he says:

‘Let’s go and find a pair of jeans. I really need a new pair.’

We go into the shop, pick up a pair, he tries them on. They fit. I pay. We leave. He says thank you.

We repeat the procedure as per item required. 

Then he says: 

‘I’m done. Can we eat? I’m starving hungry.’

The girls never want to go home and their food requirement are much more complicated and we’d be tramping around for Frappuccino latte with no coffee and the never-ending orders of burgers with no tomato or no pickle or no cheese etc would drive me nuts. My son is happy with the biggest burger on the menu and a plain vanilla ice cream. Easy.

The Yellow Crocs story was a long long time ago. It is now forgotten. 

https://fieldingteacher.blogspot.com/2020/10/yellow-crocs.html