Shop Till You Drop
We are already into the “shop till you drop” holiday shopping season. This past weekend I raced to Target to beat the holiday rush and get toys for my grandchildren. I was met by families with excited children running up and down the aisle pointing out the toys they wanted.
My mom, however, takes shop till you drop to a new level. She literally dropped after an afternoon of shopping with my sister several years ago, falling as she stepped out of the car and breaking her hip. Even now, at 91, the surest way to get my mom out of bed and moving is to ask her if she wants to go shopping.
I don’t get the appeal of shopping. I don’t mind shopping and even enjoy it if in the right frame of mind. But for the most part, I consider it a necessary chore. Though I do like a good bargain—something I learned from my mother.
Bargain Hunting (Shop Till You Drop) with Mom
I remember early clothes shopping trips with my mom and sisters. We would drive to E. Lansing to the Meridian mall then across Lansing to the Lansing Mall, stopping at Ponderosa for a steak deal and all you could eat salad bar (mom always had coupons!).
Mom knew all the shops she wanted to hit. She knew when they had their best sales and planned our trip accordingly. Then once at the store, she made a bee-line for the sales racks in the back. If any of us stopped to look at the full price clothes in the front, we were chastised.
“We don’t have time to look at those. If we do, we might miss the bargains.”
And fifty percent off wasn’t enough for mom. If it wasn’t seventy-five percent off, we were on our way. No wasting our time. Like the great hunter she was, mom knew not to linger if the pickings were slim. If mom didn’t see any good deals we moved to the next store until we found the one with the deals she was looking for. Once we found a good sale, we stayed for hours trying on clothes.
Kmart Blue Light Specials
Mom was also one of those older women making a run for the blue-light specials at the local Kmart. Whatever we were doing, mom would drop it in order to beat the other blue-haired ladies for the deals, crashing through the aisle with her shopping cart as a weapon. (My husband’s family members wonder why I clip coupons and hunt for the best meal deals before going out to a restaurant. They don’t realize I was taught by a pro.)
Maybe it has something to do with our hunter-gatherer ancestors, this desire to shop till you drop. Mom may not be hunting down an antelope, but she is every bit as focused as the lioness as she hunts down her prey. And then she gathers in all her deals and crams them into her already crowded closet, lest she ever be without clothes for every occasion.
Even so, whenever my sisters visit, Mom laments that she doesn’t have anything to wear to get them to take her shopping.
The last time I took Mom clothes shopping, I turned for a moment and she was gone, in search of another bargain. “I’ve lost my mom,” I told the salesclerk. She was shopping; I was the one dropping.
I suspect that when Jesus comes to call my mom home, all he’ll have to do is tell her there’s a blue-light special and she’ll come running.
As we go through another holiday shopping season, may you have all your shopping dreams fulfilled. And may you not literally shop till you drop!
Do you have any fun memories of holiday shopping with your mom? I would love to hear them!
Sign up to follow this blog and and receive a free copy of Still Dancing, the second book in my Dancing through Life Series. click here to sign up
(Please note – in order to help ensure you receive email with link to new book, please add my email, patricia@patriciamrobertson.com to your contact list. Some servers are quick to send newsletters to spam or other boxes.)
Leave a Reply