Kathy (a.k.a. Shopping Leader, a.k.a. SL) and I left the house about 10:30 last Saturday after some oatmeal and bacon. First stop, Tuesday Morning on Bowman. SL wanted some glasses, the fine dining kind. She used to have some she really liked, which I got for her a couple of years ago, but we seem to break one or two every year, so it’s time to reload.
I watched the other despondent shoppers who were mindlessly shuffling the aisles. Something about it was similar to “The Walking Dead.”
There was nothing at Tuesday Morning SL liked. Next stop was Mid-Town. I wanted to eat again when I got a whiff from Cantina Laredo, but SL said it was too expensive. “Then why are we going in Williams Sonoma?” I asked. She walked faster, not answering, leaving me, and my zombie-gait, far behind.
Déjà vu hit and I was reminded of a phone conversation I had once with my mom, in that very same spot on a similar mission. It went something like this:
“Hey, mom, what’s up?”
“Where are you?”
“Kathy and I are out shopping.”
“Oh, bless your hearts.”
“Thanks. What are you doing?”
“I’m staying inside today. Have you seen the new show about the man and the woman and their kids?”
“Not sure.”
“Oh, you’ll love it.”
“OK, well, I guess I’ll get on with the shopping. Love you.”
“Now, really, honey, don’t get me anything. All I want is for us all to be together at Christmas.”
“And world peace,” I replied.
“What?”
“Nothing. Talk to you later. Love you, mom.”
The person before that who told me to not get her anything for Christmas was an old girlfriend in college. “You’re silly. Don’t get me a Christmas present,” she said. So I didn’t. Which would have been a good idea had I hated her.
It made me think of the “Seinfeld” episode where Jerry gives Elaine $182 for her birthday. It didn’t go over well. Later, in the coffee shop, George tells Jerry that Elaine is mad at him, too, because he had given her $91.
SL was looking at some glasses when I walked in the store. I went into my browsing look, trying to look interested over a $1,200 set of copper pans. A sales girl came over. She had a microphone in her ear and asked if I needed help.
“So copper is the thing now I guess?” I said to her.
“What’s that?”
“Copper. People are having their copper tubing stolen off their air conditioners. The thieves sell it and it’s shipped to China where they pay like a million dollars a pound for it.”
But she had someone talking to her in her headset about a real customer over in the furniture section, and she was gone. I hoped it wasn’t SL she was targeting.
After looking at some $800 steak knives, we walked outside and back to the car. Over to my left, I saw The Container Store. “Want to go in The Container Store?” I asked SL.
“No. Why do you want to do that? It’s just containers.”
“Don’t you want to see what a huge store full of containers looks like? It’s like the big ball of twine in Kansas; you have to look. It’s just so, I don’t know, American.”
“Some other time perhaps,” SL told me. “I want to go to Steinmart.”
And that’s what we did, but it was more of the same. We left Steinmart, both of us a little irritated - SL that the shopping trip wasn’t panning out and me that college football had ended so soon.