Shopping with the girls can be difficult. They both want to buy everything they see. And even if I had all the money in the world I still wouldn't buy them everything they want, just on principle. But this makes shopping unpleasant and argumentative. So mostly I've given it up. I would say that I've given up "shopping with them" but that might give you the impression I have time to go shopping without them. And I don't.
But it's a few days after Christmas and they have gift cards. I'm not technically working (vacation=working from home) and a trip to the mall is not such a crazy idea. Heck, it's worth a try. We go to Claire's, Mecca for every American girl under the age of 11. Juju finds a polar bear hat (complete with paws) and discovers that despite the $28 price tag, it's only $7. Jackpot.
Emboldened by the vision of good sales and my kids' unusually good behavior, I volunteer to take Cassandre to her version of Mecca: Forever 21. We approach the store and I fortify myself: bright lights and chrome, the worst cover version of a favorite Depeche Mode song blaring over the speakers, and young sales girls with painted on eyebrows and bright lipliner with no lipstick (I keep waiting for this trend to pass, it's an ugly mystery). But the girls are still being good, so I decide that I can do this.
Take a deep breath and take the plunge.
The store is huge and every direction offers things Cassandre wants. I advise her to "pick a direction and stick with it" figuring we'll navigate the whole store somehow. The prices are reasonable and the store seems perfect for Cassandre. Maybe we've finally found Her Store. Along the way we find clothes that are Juju sized and even a fun shirt for me. Juju finds the perfect shirt, but it's on a mannequin and we are informed that no one is allowed to remove clothes from the mannequin.
Huh.
Armed with a little something for everyone, we are ready to go to the dressing room.
At the entrance they ask us how many items we have. I respond with "five" in a way that clearly communicates that we are together. The girl picks up a single placard with the number "5" to indicate the number of items we have and shows us to a dressing room.
Immediately we notice that there is no place to sit and the room is very small. No worries, we are family and the number of items is small. We'll work it out.
Knock knock knock!!
Unsure this knocking is actually for us, I answer "yes?"
Silence.
Pound, pound pound!
I open the door and come face to face with a righteous little clerk. "You CAN'T ALL be in there together" she says. Confused I say "but these are my children, I can't leave them alone." Cassandre, embarrassed says "It's okay, Maman, I can go." I look at the woman who repeats, in a very unpleasant, I- know-what-you're-up-to voice "You Can't Be In The Dressing Room Together." Whoa.
Cassandre darts quickly to another dressing room, leaving Juju and me alone. Juju tries on her skirt. It's too big, not that I care at this point. I don't even bother to try on my shirt. It's pretty, but I am seething. Because it's suddenly become clear to me: the clerk believes we are shoplifters.
I gather all of the clothes - including the ones Cassandre really wants to buy - and storm to the front of the dressing area. I thrust the clothes into the hands of the woman in charge of the rooms and say "If you are going to treat me like a shoplifter, you can't actually have my money." I head for the exit, fuming. The girls walk embarrassed behind me. They don't know enough to know why they are embarrassed, but my behavior is upsetting. Which of course, makes me even more mad. I see the offensive clerk in front of me and I approach her. Seeing me, she literally runs ahead, as if she has something very important to do. I can't catch her without running.
I make a beeline for the door, pausing only long enough to see if I can make out a manager. No manager. We walk out the door and, with nothing in our hands, the alarm sounds.
Perfect.
I step back into the store and glare at the staff with my empty hands in the air "What?" They casually wave me out of the store.
The kids are upset. Cassandre doesn't want to leave her newly perfect store. Juliette wants to know what happened? I explain that they were rude to us because they thought we were going to steal from them. Now they are angry too. "We should go see the manager!" Then, quietly "I want to go home."
I take them back to Claire's to spend more money on stuff they don't need to allow for a cooling off period. Lip gloss & nail polish. We go to a few more stores and browse other stuff we don't buy. We are learning about browsing. That it can be fun to look at things without actually buying them. It's a difficult concept for them, but in light of the recent attack on our family integrity, we are aligned. We don't have to buy everything. In fact we are now ready to stop spending money altogether and go home.
"We can come back another day," they say. But not to Forever 21. This place is now Forever Banned. Forever Filed under No Freakin' Way. Forever bound to our Family Integrity. Even Juju, who is only 8, understands that we can't spend money with people who accuse us of stealing.
And of course this drives home a lesson that I already knew: in retail it only takes one person to turn a potential customer into a determined adversary. Because of one woman I'm no longer ambivalent about Forever 21, I am no longer a mom looking for an easy place to take her teen. I am offended.
Forever.