Shopping for clothes with my daughter used to be easy. When she was young.
There was nothing to it. We would walk into a store, I would grab the first shirt that had a bear or a giraffe on it, she would coo and shout, “I LOVE it!!!” and before you could say, “lickety split,” we were on the way to the cash register.
How things change when you hit the teenage years. When your daughter turns 13 and fashions herself a fashionista. Someone who can strut about a store, trying on everything, saying things like, “Darling, I think that looks di-VINE on you,” and thinking her father is not only made of money, but doesn’t mind plunking it down over this or that.
An $84 crop top with a manufactured hole to look like a rat ate it? Yes, please!
She’s no longer young.
A week ago we were down in Tampa visiting family and catching a traveling show, “Kinky Boots.” My wife wanted to swing by a department store to return something and pick up something else. So as she went to tend to business, I was deposited in the young ladies’ clothing “arena” where I was to tend to the young lady, Miss Prancy Prance, who dashed about the displays, “ooh-ing” and “ahh-ing” over this and over that.
“Come, come,” I heard more than once. “Don’t leave a girl waiting while she’s SHOP-PINGGG!!!”
I slunked about like a grumbly sack of potatoes. (Slunk – Past tense of slink … “to move or go in a furtive, abject manner, as from fear, cowardice, or shame.” Yes, slunk!)
She looked through everything, pulling items from the rack, holding up in front of herself and asking how it looked.
“It’s a ball gown!” I would say. “Not only that, those are real pearls. And I think real gold leafing. That will cost more than your first car. Put it back! If you hold something more than 30 seconds in here, they bill you for it.”
She stood there, staring at me. “Really?!?” she said with a smile. I could see her lips move as she counted out: “… 13, 14, 15 …”
“PUT … IT … BACK!”
At some point, one of the saleswomen – obviously amused and smelling an easy commission – saw that I was struggling under the weight of what looked like a hay bale of clothes my daughter had stacked upon me. Apparently, saleswomen know that when they hear the sounds of fatherly knees popping, they should come running.
“Oh my,” she said. “Would you like me to run and get a wagon, and then start you a mortgage with our loan office?”
“Yes, that would be lovely,” my daughter said. “We have lots of shopping to do.”
Oh, this is not happening! What happened to the old days. The easy days. The cheaper days. Those young-kid days. But I went along with it, and showed some interest. And even enjoyed myself along the way.
The hay bale of clothes didn’t come home with us, I never had to go to the department store’s mortgage office and no ball gowns with real pearls graced our shopping bags.
I also learned that shirts with bears or giraffes just won’t do the trick anymore. Not at this age.