My Thoughts on: Shopping with Nana

Nana is my mom.  She's not who you generally picture when you hear the word Nana.  She does sew and bake, but she also plays a mean game of Twister and rocked some black leather pants at her 50th high school reunion.  And she also likes to shop like no one I have ever met or will meet.

Some of my most prevalent memories of my mom from my childhood aren't of us going to the park, the library or the zoo but of going to Kmart, Venture and JC Penney's catalogue store.  Kmart and Venture weren't too bad, unless she had a return to make.  (I'll get to returns in a minute.)

Kmart meant a drop off in the toy department while she shopped (it was the 70s folks) and an Icee on the way out if we were "good".  Which I guess meant my older brother and I didn't shoplift or spill each other's blood all over the Weebles display. 

For some reason Venture (just like Kmart for those of you not familiar with that particular retailer) did not include a drop off in the toy department, but it DID include a few donut holes (they had a bakery right at the entrance) that my mom doled out along our way to my brother and me through the store if we kept our hands on the cart and off of each other. 

As an aside, if you've met my older brother Hotay (his childhood nickname and pronounced HOE-Tay), you will know that all fighting was instigated by him, and I was always just defending myself.  We'll save Hotay for another blog as well.

Anyhoo, like I said, Kmart and Venture were cool so long as Moms didn't have a return.  If, when we got out of the car at either place, she said, "Deborah, I have a return", I automatically got a twitch in my right eye which would not stop for days.  We would enter the store, she would hand me the return, and I would trudge off to the customer service counter like someone who cheated on Weight Watchers all week about to step on the scale for their weekly weigh in.  Moms and Hotay would then merrily go along on to do the shopping.

Since, as I have stated, Hotay is my older brother, you may wonder why she didn't send HIM to make the return.  Let's clear something up right away.  Adult Hotay is an organized, methodical, meticulous dude.  Kid Hotay was a hot mess.  If given the bag to make the return, he would have ended up sitting in the automotive department chewing gum he got off the floor and with the bag over his head.

As if the return line weren't bad enough at those stores, then there was the JC Penney catalogue store.  It was located in the same strip shopping center as TG&Y, a/k/a the "dime store", so that was a kid mecca.  We would silently pray as we turned into the center that Moms pull in front of TG&Y and not JCP. 

Now you have to remember that back then, there was no internet.  JC Penney and Sears put out catalogues each season that doubled as booster seats for the little kids at the dining room table and a weapon if someone broke in your house, and you didn't have time to load your gun. 

But even though Moms was on the mailing list for both catalogues and had them at home, did that mean she had made a final decision on her particular purchase that day prior to our arrival, and she could place her order on the little rotary phone at the in-store kiosk, and we could go on our way?  You must be kidding.

The saving grace for Hotay and me was that the little kiosks were next to the bath department.  We would move the bath mats and towels around on the shelves until we had little cubbies of comfort to nestle into because we KNEW we were going to be there for hours while Moms perused the catalogue trying to make the agonizing decision between the tangerine curtains and the avocado green ones.

If didn't matter if we were hungry, thirsty, had to go to the bathroom, nothing was moving Moms until her order was placed.  For hunger she would hand out half a stick of Juicy Fruit gum or a Tic Tac from her purse, for thirst she would direct us to the water fountain, and for the bathroom, she would send us to the restrooms.  Me on my own, or with Hotay if he had to go. 

I had to stand outside of the men's room door to listen and be The Informer if he started to mess around.  Let's face it, putting Hotay in a room without adult supervision and with running water, soap and that cloth towel thingy that looped around and around back in the days before paper towel dispensers and air dryers was just asking for trouble.

To say that all of this had an impact on my shopping rituals and practices as an adult is an understatement.  Don't misunderstand, I love clothes, shoes, accessories, home decor, all of it.  And I like to shop for it.  But I go into any store with a specific purpose, and I can be in and out in thirty minutes.  I don't do fitting rooms, if there are more than three people waiting at the check out line, I'm likely to put back whatever I have and leave, and I'd just as soon keep whatever I bought that didn't work out as opposed to having to return it.

So fast forward from my shopping as a kid with Moms to my shopping as an adult with her.   Now she's a Nana, and she comes to my town in the burbs of KC from her town in the burbs of Indianapolis to visit the granddarlings about every six weeks or so.  And she comes to shop.

Everything is a shopportunity for Nana.  Need a belt?  She'll shop for it.  Need a house?  She's on it.  Need a pie keeper in red for an 8" pie plate?  She's got a coupon for it.  She shops in the morning, she shops in the afternoon, the evening, early bird sales, night owl sales, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Just Because it's Friday.

I admit.  I'm an enabler.  Don't judge me.  If you were raised under the influence of a woman with two jewelry armoires and 300+ pairs of shoes, (no, I am NOT kidding), you would know from knee high how to feed a junkie's fix.  When I know she's coming for a visit, I start saving the ads for her fave stores that we have in KC and she doesn't in Indy.

Once she's here, we set out.  My kids won't go with us anymore.  For years they were forced to go with us because they didn't have a choice.  Now that they do, as soon as I start a sentence with "Nana and I are going sh...", they cut me off in unison with "No, we're good, we'll stay home, thanks".  Such a pity.  Too many years of exposure to Nana's shopping excursions have left them jaded and scarred at such a young age. 

So Nana and I head out, usually to her Ultra Supreme favorite KC store, the JC Penney Outlet.  Now I love me some JCPO as well, but my love is much more efficient.  I can do the whole store in thirty minutes, forty-five if I get caught up in a baaaaad line.  Yes, the over three people "put the stuff back and leave" rule still applies here, but if you've been to JCPO, you know that three people in line there can be checked out in anywhere from six to eighty-three minutes, depending on how much stuff they have, how many different credit cards they have to try before they have one that isn't declined, and how long it is until the cashier's next break.

At any store she goes to, Nana has to look at everything.  Ev-er-y-thing.  If she doesn't have a need for something in one of the departments, she knows someone who does.  Case in point: 

"Mom, why are you looking at pet stuff?  The cat's been dead for over ten years"

"Well, I was at Barb So-and-So's house, you know Barb, she was at your brother J's high school graduation open house....(my younger brother J is now in his 30s, married and has a kid, but for the sake of not slowing down the point of the story, sure, I know Barb)....and I noticed they had this tacky plastic water bowl for their dog that had dog paw prints all over it, and these nice stainless steel water bowls are only $2.99, so I thought I'd get it for her dog"

*crickets* 

So I hang tough for about an hour, and then I call her (because at this point I've quit tagging along with her around the store and am sitting on a couch in the "Catalog Returns" area of the store with old men dozing on either side of me) and tell her I will be in the car.  This spins her into panic mode because she hasn't even been to the fitting room yet, and she needs me to check in with her items that exceed the ten item max and also to be a Clothing Runner.

If you've ever worked clothing retail, you know what this job is.  As she tries each item on, one by one they come over the top of the door with comments like, "I need this in a four instead of a six", "I thought I wanted the black, but can you get me the grey instead?" and "See if you can find me such-and-such pants to try on with this blouse.  I can't get a feel for if I like the blouse or not in these pants I have on"

As I conclude what is probably the longest blog entry in history, you are probably asking, "Why on God's green earth would you go shopping with her if it involves all of that and if it drives you nuts?"  The answer is because I love my mom.  She's not going to be with me forever, and there will come a day when she's in heaven, and I'm still here.  And I'll drive by one of her favorite stores, and I'll think "I miss her".  I don't want "I wish I had spent more time with her when she was here" to be a postscript to that thought.

So when she comes for her next visit, I'll fuel up on caffeine, load my purse with snacks and settle in for a few days of shopping with Nana.  And that will be exactly where I want to be.

Sparkly Kisses,

D