Back to School Shopping Scars

My Baby Daddy (ex husband and father of my daughter) is an editor at the local newspaper and recently reached out for assistance on a Back To School article he was writing. He was looking for a family who wouldn't mind a reporter tagging along when they did their back to school shopping and asked if I'd e-mail my friends and contacts soliciting a victim, er family, for their article.

I sent a blast e-mail out and got a few private responses from friends who didn't think chronicling their back to school shopping for the (local) world to see would be such a good idea. But the best response came from VOR (my friend who I refer to as my Voice of Reason).


"Oh, yeah.... I can see it now.... the camera zooms in on my face just as my patience is running thin when my 13 year old daughter, who is barricaded in a dressing room and trying on what must be the 50th outfit of the day, exclaims for everyone within a 5 dept. range that, OMG Mom!! No one would EVER wear this to school! OMG!!! After 5 hours of serious shopping (after all school shopping HAS to be done all in one day, there's a rule) her blood sugar level is dropping almost as fast as my money is disappearing out of my wallet. Oh yes, that would be one of our finest hours...."

I actually stopped by the mall yesterday while my daughter was away visiting my parents for a few days to pick up a few items of clothing for my 9-year-old Mini-Me. At this age, she doesn't give me too hard a time about clothing and let's me choose most of it, which apparently will stop when she turns 13, according to VOR.

As I was checking out, a woman about my age with three daughters between the ages of 6 and 12 came into the store. The girls all began judging the clothes, what was cool, what was not and what they wouldn't be caught dead in. Of course, I noticed nothing on the "sale" rack was deemed suitable for dress by the living. As they left the store, the salesgirl said to me "Not a good idea to bring the girls with you shopping. They never want the least expensive or most practical items."

"Why do you think I left my daughter at home?" I replied.

"You're smart." said the salesgirl as she rang up my purchase for items picked exclusively from the sales rack.