“I chose wrong,” said the boy as he strode through a crosswalk, dodging cars and trailing behind. The three of us, now in full jog, were headed toward a wall of sliding glass doors. Truth be told, her brother hadn’t needed much convincing.
When his sister, freshly back from college, asked if he wanted to join us for some pre-holiday shopping, he smiled slyly and asked, “Whose car are we gonna take?”
“Dad’s. He’s joining us, too”
The menfolk were game even though she had warned them the quest would involve all manner of things that she knew might be irritating; things like darting to various goods stores, sorting through women’s clothes and cosmetics while visiting one particular department store she would insist on pronouncing with a flourish.
Her brother would chaff at the sound of it.
We laughed. He laughed. And the doors swung open. In we went — our family.
I grabbed a handbasket as she perused the first bank of merchandise … an island of misfit toys.
Their father was the most self-protective; he grabbed a double-decker cart, declaring his mission would be to corral all the things we’d managed to forget during three trips to the grocery store over the span of two days and headed toward grocery items.
The boy hung back as if straddling a fence … should he go with us past the “unmentionables” or should he go with his father toward electronics?
The Ys disappear… only to reappear In phone calls seeking our locations, and then in person a few aisles later.
“Again, I feel like I have chosen the wrong path,” the boy announces as he tugs at the handle of the basket I am lugging around, indicating by a delicate force the universal language of chivalry.
He will make himself useful by carrying the load.
“I CAN ALSO show you the forty-six-thousand-inch TV dad would like SOMEONE to fit down the chimney.”
And so we spent the better part of an afternoon chasing each other down aisles looking for hot chocolate and cozy socks.
Fielding phone-call requests for guidance from the pet food department (yes, Virginia, there is a Kibble Clause, and also there is more than one aisle of dog food brands).
Sending text directions to the store, and more specifically, the parts of the store we had migrated since last he saw us.
And recreating the viral videos we’ve all of the shoppers in search of something fantastic …. Like “a reindeer sculpture that is tiled in disco ball mirrors but rolling on its back” … and finding the very last one in stock.
Of course, we left most of the stores empty-handed. Somehow, the joy we had of being together shopping barely translated to sales. But all was not for naught.
We had broken the ice. Gotten our feet wet in the shallow end. And retreated to a warm car and laughter.
We may not have said YES to the faux-topiary dog sculpture made almost entirely of astroturf, but we managed to cross a few things off of the list. We even found a few reasons to make a happy return.
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