Thursday, August 21, 2014

Summer is Quickly Coming to a Shopping Halt


For my family, this is the end; of summer that is. There were such high hopes for this summer. Early in the summer, I spotted a tweet from a twitter friend, Rachel @girl_onthego, referring to her grandfather’s brain museum. More correctly, it is “The Museum of Neuroanatomy,” and it is located in Buffalo, NY, which is a scant hour drive from my home. It sounded off-beat enough to pique the interest of my daughters and me. I thought it would be a good thing to do.

Although it was on our list, it didn’t get marked off as done; we have decided to keep it on the list.

We did have a busy and wonderful summer. Littlest, Middlest, and I went with a group of teens out to Greenville, Illinois for a week of Bible Quizzing competition. As a family, we spent a day at the fair and an evening at a ball game (I wrote about that adventure last week). This past week, Beloved and I celebrated our twenty-fifth anniversary. The details of that celebration will be kept under-cover.

Any long-time reader of my blog knows that I dislike shopping and the end of summer means more shopping: school shopping. I am not sure which I dislike more: school or shopping. Be assured, gentle reader, that I went to school. I even have a bachelors of arts degree in something or another. Notice that even though I was confirmed a bachelor, I still married, and being married is way better than school. Even if my wife works at an educational institution and drags me shopping.

Going shopping with women folk is an experience. Once in a while I will be asked whether I like one piece of clothing over another. The interrogator will hold each piece up over her appropriate body part and look at me expectantly.

I rub my bearded chin softly and make fluffy noises to my self with my brow furrowed. Then I reach out and touch the fabric of each item; I examine the quality of the stitching. Then I pronounce judgment on which one I like the best.

I always end up choosing the least expensive item, for, you see, while caressing the fabric and examining the stitching, I always look at the price tag.

While on one of these recent school shopping escapades, I was thinking to myself, “Self, it will be so nice when school starts and the shopping will be done.”

Beloved, as if reading my mind, hugged my arm and with a warm giggle said, “As soon as everyone gets back to school, we can go Christmas shopping.”

Oh bother.

2 comments:

  1. I can't stand it either, and I'm a girl! If it's clean, and it fits, and I can get glue and paint out of it (I'm a teacher) then the job is done!

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  2. Congratulations on your under-cover 25th anniversary celebration. A privilege and a blessing, no matter how many shopping trips it took to get there. You tell Beloved to get you to that brain museum though. Maybe you can ask for it for Christmas.

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