Crazy

I am one of those lunatics who will head out shopping this morning. I popped up out of bed at 2:30 this morning to make coffee. I've already scoured the ads with Katie to plan a shopping route based on opening times and what we are hoping to purchase. This morning's Black Friday (aptly named since this is the day when many retailers hope to "be in the black" and to gauge holiday sales) adventures will include one of my daughters for the first time. It's something of a milestone in our family. We are not those people who have matching sweatshirts made up to identify one another as they gambol around the stores fighting for one of the limited to 50 larger-than-life-size Santa blow-up yard decorations for 19.99 available only from 5 a.m. to 11 a.m.. Those people are crazier than us. (I know I'm okay as long as somebody else is still crazier.)

The first year I went along to this madhouse we lived in Midland, TX and I was in high school. My cousin John and I were both along with our mothers and Mammy. I was only along because John was going along with Aunt Sue. John was going because his Mama wanted him along, and he was more patient than anyone else on the planet with Mammy's shopping techniques. Mammy's technique was to very slowly peruse every single item in any given store. (This explains how Papa patiently spent years of his life sitting in the parking lots of K-Mart, Wal-Mart, and craft stores all over Texas and parts of New Mexico in the years before cell phones made it possible for our loved ones to track us down after we disappeared through the automatic doors.) It became a running joke as to who was going to be tagged to take Mammy to the store. John Paul was acknowledged by most as the very best shopping buddy for Mammy, and I began to aspire to his extraordinary patience. It was not an exercise for the hurried, but it was a delight to learn to see the standard aisles of your mega-mart as an adventure unfolding before the wheels of your cart.

While Mammy is no longer with us to cruise the aisles of our local discount retailers, the men who marry into the family have noted an interesting phenomenon. All of the women in the line seem to develop this see-it-all tendency and become ever slower as the years pass. My mom needs something in the neighborhood of 40 minutes to "run in" after one or two small items. I have a compulsion to wander away from my targeted shopping in case there is a "deal" available on the back end of an aisle somewhere. I walk into a store and my focus becomes fuzzy and eventually dissolves entirely. Mom and I are only a few decades into our lives. Mammy had 74 years in which to perfect the art of becoming distracted and to develop a pace as unhurried as molasses running uphill. Despite marrying into a clan where shopping is not so much a leisurely stroll as a timed test, I continue to grow slower with each passing year.

Today I will pass the torch. Kaitlin turned 10 last Spring, and I have noticed that she has lost the urge to rush in and out of a store. She now lingers. She suggests we check out "one more thing," and she is no longer able to resist the siren song of a clearance rack. The signs that she is maturing into her birthright are present.