Enjoying the Ride

I am not a shopper. This is difficult for a woman who grew up with three sisters and two close female cousins to admit, but crowds and capitalism both sort of freak me out.

It's also unfortunate for me as a resident of the Fox Cities, or "Wisconsin's Shopping Place," as the local chamber of commerce has dubbed our tiny metropolis. The moniker refers primarily to the attraction that is the Fox River Mall, a monolithic presence along the community's main traffic artery since the '80s, when I was growing up in Green Bay. I made a pilgrimage or two with high school friends then, but only because I had to in order to be cool.

Now I avoid the place like the plague, especially at Christmas. I'll skulk around its fringes early in the morning or late at night, but I steer almost completely clear on the weekends. It's scary for me. Really.

That's why it's surprising that I've been there twice in the last month — once four weeks ago to pick up drapes I'd ordered from JC Penney and to get the kids' hair cut, and again today to retrieve my daughter from a shopping/babysitting excursion with her grandma...and to make good on a promise I'd made those four weeks ago.

You see, I had tried to make heading to market after school on a Friday seem appealing to my kids by extending a carrot — if they behaved while I paid for my window treatments, I'd pony up for a gumball of their choosing from the ridiculous menagerie of flavors outside the Pearle Vision. This really only worked on my daughter, since my son couldn't be coaxed to tolerate shopping under any circumstances — and then my daughter fell asleep in the car prior to our arrival at the mall. So I snuck in and snuck out without visiting Candyland.

But she remembered. And she hasn't let me forget.

So today when we were in the 'hood, I decided to deliver. (Plus I had to make a return at Target, so there was something in it for me, too.) We strolled into the mall proper, both with purses in hand, skipping the candy machines to have a ride on one of the amusements in the mall corridor instead.

At the veritable funland we came upon, there were five rides in a gluttonous array. She quickly decided to plug her coins into the fire truck, but the ride was over all too soon. So she dropped another 50 cents in the ATV and again was left wanting.

We made our way to the train next, and moments after it started its rocking, with her head bobbing to and fro, she said, "You know what I want to ride next, Mommy?"

I, in my wisdom, said, "Just enjoy the ride you're on, honey."

Those words have been ringing in my ears ever since.  Next time we run into each other, repeat them back to me, if you would.