Big Deals at Small Prices

My childhood was lived in department stores. That's how it seemed, anyway, because my mother had a love for shopping that ranked just shy of her love for my brother and myself, and well above her care for our pets. The everyday memories of my mother do not take place in parks or at Bingo halls, but rather among racks of moderately priced kitchen textiles and aisles of crafting supplies.

While other children were off learning about the rules of baseball and football from their fathers, I opted instead to hang out with my mother. And so, while I cannot tell the difference between a field goal and a grand slam, I can find my way around a Walmart or a Target like nobody's business. If one of my friends in grade school had suddenly come up to me and said, "I wonder where I can find some glass champagne flutes at Big Lots," I could have directed him with ease. Or if one of my teachers sprang a pop quiz on me, asking me to close my eyes and describe the interior of a Value City, I would have passed with flying white and brown colors.

If anything, I might have considered myself a navigator of retail, something akin to a seaman and his frequented waters. Except my boat was a shopping cart, and my sails were made of plastic shopping bags. Had the other kids my age been competing with me for the title of World's Best Retail Expert, I would have feigned congeniality but secretly told myself, "You're the one, you're the one. You're a shoe-in for this. This is what you were born for. You know where the highest thread-count sheet sets are, and you can get from there to the paper towels in no time flat." If I couldn't join in a conversation about the St. Louis Cardinals, then I could at least convince myself that I might impress someone with my knowledge of department store floor plans.

By the time I was eight I was off exploring on my own. The toy department became my destination of choice, and every time my mother and I would go somewhere we would part ways. She would go through her lists and stashes of clipped coupons, looking for basics like toilet paper and detergent. She'd then make her way to the grocery sections to stock up on cans of peas and pork 'n' beans to join the ranks of other canned foods and gallon jugs of water waiting in our basement. Meanwhile, I would drool over $40 Lego sets and Star Trek action figures, oblivious to the coming nuclear armageddon intimated by my mother's cache of food and water. I found myself so enraptured by the toys that my mother would have to come find me when she was ready to leave, prying my fingers off of a set of miniature plastic spaceships or a Batman doll with a working utility belt. "Come on," she'd say. "We...have...to...GO."

The first time my mother didn't come to find me was an experience, and a real eye opener. We were in a Target store and, somehow, I exhausted my desire to browse, so I set off to find my mother, thinking, I guess, that that would be the end of our stay there. As each department came and went with no Mom, a growing panic took hold. It's funny how rational though can escape a person when their age is eternities away from double digits and their height's rivaled by a yardstick. Oh my god, I thought, my mother has abandoned me. She finally got fed up with my neediness and my always wanting that Space Enforcer Lego set and she's taken off, and now I'm going to have to live in this Target store until I'm old enough to hitchhike back home.

After what felt like anywhere from three to seven trips around the store, passing families with their kids in tow, I started to reevaluate my pride in thinking I knew how to make it on my own in places like this. Sure it was nice being able to go look at toys I wouldn't be able to afford until I was well into my twenties, and it was something of a relief to say I had a skill that few of the others my age had (even if that skill was at finding discounted hand towels and dish soap on clearance endcaps). But what was it worth when you couldn't find the one thing that mattered?

All the dish soap and towels in the world wouldn't do me any good, and neither would Legos unless I could somehow build a giant, pedal-powered dune buggy that would drive me home. But, judging by how long it took me to follow the step-by-step instructions for sets as simple as the police station or the underwater sea lab, my Lego idea was a no-go.

Ultimately, by the time I came around to the toys once again, I was on the verge of tears. The thought of going up front, of asking strangers for help, made me lightheaded. It was the last option I had, and I was just about to take it when I saw my mother turn a corner up ahead and start making her way toward me. The weight of my relief felt like a quilt, heavy on my chest, and I walked, nearly running, to her and the fully-laden cart whose plastic bottom sagged like an overweight dog.

With a cursory once-over to make sure I wasn't bleeding or clutching something I hoped she'd buy, she said, "Well, I think I'm about ready. Did you see anything you liked?"

I started to speak, but I couldn't think of anything I'd looked at. Instead, I just said, "Not really," and, pressing myself close to her, we made our way up front.