How I Survived A Mall-ing.

This is my first post for the L.A. Mom's Blog.  I was thrilled to be asked to participate, but a little apprehensive as well. Writing for a new audience is always nerve-wracking, sort of like being asked to dance on command, or sing "Little Bunny FuFu" for a room full of relatives.  Not that I ever did that to my kids and if I did it was only because I needed to buy some time while I finished basting that turkey.

I started to panic when I realized I didn't have anything to write about.  Life has been pretty uneventful for me lately - no smackdowns with other PTA moms, no catastrophic household events.  I've even left the house with two matched shoes for four days in a row now.

And then I went to the mall.

It sounded like a good idea at first.  My twelve-year-old and her friend wanted to do a little end-of-school celebratory shopping.  I figured they deserved it, after having completed their first year of middle school without getting pregnant or going to rehab.  So I agreed to take them, and to make it slightly more bearable for my ten-year-old who would have to tag along I suggested she invite a friend, too. How hard could that be, keeping four tween girls happy at the mall? I figured I’d have tons of idle time while I waited, occasionally offering reassuring nods as they tried to decide between the striped or the plaid hoodie.  I pictured myself sipping coffee and watching YouTube videos on my iPhone and maybe even reading the first six chapters of War and Peace.

Except I didn’t take into account the wildly different shopping styles of ten-year-olds and twelve-year-olds, or more importantly, the geographic disparity between the stores they prefer. What sadistic architect put the Hello Kitty store on the opposite end of the mall from Hot Topic, which is at least a fifteen mile walk?  Wouldn’t it have been just as easy to put the pet store next to Wet Seal, so that while the younger ones were cooing over the pen of Chihuahuas the older ones could have been discussing the merits of skinny jeans versus boot cut a few feet away?  Is there a good reason why The Sunglass Hut is in an entirely different wing from KB Toys?  It’s as if the architect saw this day coming and laughed to himself, “Say a mom brings a ten-year-old and a twelve-year-old to the mall.  I’m going to really make her hustle her ass off getting from Build-A-Bear to the Junior’s department at Macy’s.”

So I devised a plan where I would allow the two older girls to visit a store on their own while I accompanied the two younger ones on their shopping excursion.  I don’t normally like to let my girls shop unattended, especially in a store like Hot Topic.  There's a good chance they'll get snatched away through a secret door in the dressing room, only to emerge two hours later with their navels pierced and the store manager’s initials tattooed on their forearms.  But those fears eased away, when I realized I could take the younger ones hunting for plastic wallets while the older girls filled up on graphic T’s and skull necklaces.  Besides, I hear some insurance companies now cover tattoo removal.

It worked out well, until my twelve-year-old accidentally turned off her cell phone, and I couldn’t get in touch with her and her friend after they had convinced me to let them go to Forever 21 on their own.  I imagined all sorts of bad things had happened, from the two of them unconscious in a dressing room, to Child Services showing up and taking them away, their hands still clutching hangers of leggings and silkscreened tank tops.  After a sweat-inducing sprint from one end of the mall to the other I discovered they were fine. They also informed me that they had worked up quite an appetite shopping unattended and spending their parents’ hard earned money.

But nothing prepared me for the mind bending chaos that ensues when trying to satisfy the food preferences of four tween girls In an overcrowded food court.  While I had hoped to order four pizza combos and call it a day, what followed was an excruciating interlude where the girls visited every venue and read each menu from start to finish.  I sent off the older girls with a fistful of cash and then took the two younger ones to the two separate stalls of their choice, along with the other three hundred other people deciding to eat lunch at the same time.  I felt a little like Joan of Arc leading her troops into battle, except I was wielding a plastic tray and I was having to fight off the crazies at the Baja Fresh counter.

I ended the day by threatening the girls with an ultimatum:  The four of them had to decide on one store, or risk having me drag them to Sephora to watch me pick out eye cream.  They all agreed on Bath and Body Works, and that would have worked out well until I spent a little too long helping the older girls pick out their foaming shower gel and turned to find the two younger ones had hit the makeup counter and now looked like a couple of pre-teen hookers.  You should have seen the glares – apparently there’s nothing more embarrassing than having your mom lick her thumb and then rub off your Perfect Plum eyeshadow and Candy Apple rouge.

Hey, at least I didn’t ask them to sing Little Bunny FuFu.

This is an original post to Los Angeles Moms Blog.

Marsha also blogs about non-shopping-related topics over on Sweatpantsmom, things she likes over at Views From The Pants and skewers celebrities over on FameCrawler.