Mall Thoughts...

School starts the day we get back from our trip so the everdreaded shopping needed to be done. I had put a few hundred aside out of my last poker winnings so last night I loaded up Mr.SoonToBeBlue and thePrincess and headed for the mall. They'd been watching the sale ads for me, so I gave them a great pep talk on "Less is More" and how they'd end up with more stuff if we sale shopped. Usually, when I take the kids shopping, I come home with a headache and a stomacheache, it just irks me to throw money away on stuff they're going to outgrow in a matter of weeks. This year, they're both almost full grown and it was not so bad, really. We walked into the store and Mr.SoonToBeBlue (who, by the way was on his last shopping trip with mom, he was excited because the next big batch of stuff to be bought will be coming out of his very own SoonToBeEarnedInTheAirForce paycheck) headed for the sale rack and came back with a dozen preppy shirts and some jeans in one minute forty-five seconds. Yeah. That's my kind of shopper. ThePrincess is another story. At almost 16 she gets pickier by the day. Not fussygirl picky. But aLittleRedneckSpentTooMuchOfHerLifeInTheSouth picky. Jeans and rebel shirts. That's all she wants to wear. Forget a blouse or a sweater or pair of nice pants. It isn't going to happen. So an hour later we were still walking around the same tiny little store trying to get her to make up her mind while I'm chanting softly behind her..."Colors are our friend... colors are our friend!" When she was finally loaded down with some faded, ripped t-shirts and patched jeans (Lord knows why we even went to buy clothes this year because everything they already have is quite in style by the looks of what was in the store...), it took me another 30 seconds to grab two skirts and four blouses so I'll have something new for the trip.

I hate going to the mall. It's not like it used to be when I was a kid.

When I go to the mall now, the biggest thing I see is cell phones. People talking on cell phones and the stands everywhere selling cell phone accessories. That's not what I remember the mall being all about. I remember when I was seven going with my mom and dad to get my first pair of BOOTS (Brown ones that zipped up to my knee and I got in trouble for sleeping with them under my pillow that night!). Going to the mall always involved seeing all the men my grandfather's age who were amputees and veterans of WorldWar II and Korea. They were always there. Then it was seeing all the men my uncle's age, who were amputees and veterans of Vietnam. My grandfather passed away several months ago (GrandpaBlue, the rotten old colonel himself!)and it's been forever since I've seen those men at the mall. They've all gone away to that big base in the sky, I guess. Now, with Ms.Blue serving and MrSoonToBeBlue headed that way shortly, I worry about stupid things like that. Like those old men who used to always be at the mall.