Patch Blog: Dadmissions on Back-To-School Shopping

We locked ourselves in there and weren't coming out for at least an hour, no matter what.

There we were in a four-foot-by-four-foot room with a mirror on one wall and a coat hook on the other, right in the middle of a pack of people moving back and forth. It was Alicia, Andreya, mom and dad, jammed together like we were trying to break some Guinness record for people in a small, confined space. We were shopping for back to school clothes.

Now, there aren't too many things on the parental scale where the kids' emotions can be so diametrically opposed to the adults' emotions as shopping for back to school clothes. These girls are jumping out of their shoes, doing the happy dance, literally shouting in excitement as they go from rack to rack, while I'm getting sweaty palms, grabbing my stomach in pain, and clinging to my wallet.

Eventually, we had a small mountain of clothes stacked up, graphic shirts, uniform outfits, dresses, furry things that I still don't know what they do, and jeggings.

Apparently those are jeans that look like leggings...jeggings.  All I know is they're ten bucks a pop at least.

Once we picked the pile of Doo Dah, we went and locked ourselves in the dressing room again. Each girl would then spend the next hour trying on each piece of clothing in meticulous little kid detail and then doing a twirl in the mirror with each item. I think people were knocking on the door to try on their own clothes. But we would just stop talking, keep quiet, and wait for them to go away so we could continue the try-ons.

We had three piles: keep it, toss it, or keep it but get a new size.  I was the go-fer who'd fetch the new sizes and them weave my way back to the dressing room-- do the secret knock-- get back inside-- then lock ourselves in again. The keep it pile was huge. The toss it pile was tiny.

Once in a while, when they weren't looking, I'd try and kick a couple of items into the toss it line. What the heck, they wouldn't notice. After about an hour and a half, we took the mountain of clothes and made our way to the check out.  The lady started telling me about their bonus coupons.  I could get 20 bucks back for each forty bucks I spent, if I came back another time and spent at least 20 bucks. I'm not sure but I think it was a pyramid scheme... Make 20 if I spend 40 .. And then come back and spend 20. Something like that.

Eventually, the cash register started smoking because the sale was just too big. We broke the cash register and walked out with a few big bags of clothes and the girls were still trying to grab clothes on their way out the door.

It took about 24 hours I think before the girls first complained again that they had nothing to wear. But those 24 hours were super sweet.

Thank god that back to school shopping only comes once a year. One day, I'm gonna drag the girls to do three hours of back-to-work shopping, and they can watch me model pants and shirts and more pants and more shirts, and then THEY can pick up the tab for good measure.