Shopping

Every so often a couple of us get in the van and drive to the "big city" to go shopping. It isn't that we lack for stores in our own neighborhood, it's just that thrift stores (if thrift stores are our hankering) in our own neighborhood are often picked through thoroughly by our similarly economizing neighbors.

None of us LOVE thrift stores, but it helps me keep my sanity in the long run. You see, if a boy comes into the house with greasy, ripped, or mud caked jeans, I remain calm and composed if I realize they were only $2-5 thrift store jeans. If the same thing happens to a $25 or 30 pair of new jeans, I start getting twitchy.

I draw my line with shirts, though. I simply do not have the patience to sort through 3,000 assorted shirts of every size and color and variety. No, I watch for clearance racks at NEW stores and load up then.
We "only" took Clay, Maria, Audrey, Shannah, Brady, Brock, and myself on this particular trip. Take more than that and we clog up the aisles with our own people. Not good on a 1/2 price day when so many other people are also needing space. We told Brady and Brock we'd buy them a sandwich if they'd go and pick out their own clothes. Small price to pay to get them looking through racks!

The girls always look for their own stuff. I also get them to help me pick out stuff for me because I can NEVER seem to pick the right ANYTHING for myself. Sigh. I look for the little boys, but Audrey is pretty deft at helping out with that. Normally Shannah disappears into the shoe or purse department.

The downside to taking the twins shopping is, they shop like BOYS. At one point (at a NEW store) Brady came to me with a whole stack of a dozen or so t-shirts to plop into the cart. Audrey and I both looked at him with bewilderment. All the t-shirts were either black or brown and all of them were his size.

"Brady," I ventured, "if you get all those shirts in the same color you will never have any variety in your wardrobe....ever."

"Oh, I know," he says, "I don't care about that. They're only $1.49 each and who wants to go shopping for shirts again for a long time?"

He had a point. Plus, what difference did it make if they were all the same color? He'll be getting them all dirty and greasy soon anyhow. Thankfully Paul found a clearance rack of Wrangler button downs at the local farm store not long ago so they have nicer options when they need them!

At one point, we went into a department store. Clay was getting crabby and had tired of the baby sling. I have this "thing" about him licking carts, so I had Maria carrying him around for a while. She found a Maria-ish solution: she took him around and showed him all the faceless mannikins and "scared" him into silence. (<-----????)

Maria then decided to adjust the pose of one of the store mannikins. Audrey sensibly walked away when the arm came off and Maria doubled over in hysteria. Audrey had the same reaction when Maria knocked the credit card scanner down with a stack of plastic totes at the dollar store one time. Yes, shopping with Maria is unpredictable....but fun.

In a parking lot of one of the stores, a lady parked nearby and was inspecting her SUV tire. It was rapidly deflating. She whipped out her phone and seemed to make arrangements to have it taken care of. Brock asked me if he should go out and change it for her. I considered letting him, but I figured most people would ASSUME a 12 year old boy wouldn't really know what he was doing.

And so, that takes care of clothes shopping for the time being. :)

~Colleen