Monday's angry rant

Mondays

I took three kids to the mall on Monday to keep them busy and to keep me from beating them to a pulp. “With Pulp” by the way is the best way to drink Tropicana orange juice and if you’re buying it without pulp why not save $4.50 and drink “Tang?” Anyway, we entered through Neiman Marcus where I noted a dozen well dressed employees looking quite bored behind their respective cosmetic counters. At one, a male employee sat in a customer stool getting make up applied by a female employee - which when I was a mallrat would just not have been considered normal and certainly would’ve provoked some sort of “stool” joke.

The Prada and Ballenciaga handbags priced at $1600 and above sat gleaming but lonely under the fluorescent lights while the employee minimum wage clock silently ticked away toward Chapter 11 and so there I begin my observations with comment.

Even when the stores were filled with shoppers, who obviously didn’t earn their own monthly paycheck, because if they did they certainly wouldn’t be considering $800 shoes – I strongly feel that these dingbats (anyone regardless of income status who spends thousands of dollars because a bag has a certain name on it) should be taken to Yankee Stadium sometime before first pitch and have their heads used for batting practice.

Immediately my kids pulled me in three different directions – or more specifically Justin my 12 year old pulled toward the food court whining he’s hungry, Karina my 5 year old girl pulled toward a kiosk chanting “ice cream, ice cream, ice ream” and Christian my little boy punched me in the balls screaming “Shirts! Shirts! Take me somewhere where they have shirts!” (He’s four – so I don’t know if he even knows what he means, but I was tempted to hand him over to the make-up guy to go browsing).

Karina’s shouts for ice cream usually win, partly because she has the most obnoxious cry, partly because she’s sort of disabled and I don’t feel like carrying her any further, and mostly because I like Haagen Daaz coffee ice cream more than I like my kids most of the time.

Of course we find ourselves standing behind a lady who has somehow managed to reach the age of 70 without learning a word of English, yet has in the course of her life somehow wound up at the Garden State Mall, located in the highest income county in the nation.
She is presently standing in front of us counting pennies out loud in Spanish as she holds each one up to the light, presumably to determine if they’re in fact US currency or Pesos.

Standing next in line does nothing to quiet Karina’s steady cry of “Ice Cream, Ice Cream, Aaaaaaaahhhhh, Ice cream, I want it. Come on, Ice cream.” And Christian’s sudden need to run 100 yards away and back, with Justin screaming “Christian come back!” and this does nothing to quell the thought – I just need a little Xanax or a lot of bullets.

I’m next –
“I’ll have a kid’s size vanilla with colored sprinkles.”
“We don’t have kids size.”
“OK I’ll have small”
“We don’t have small – we have two sizes Large and Grande”
First of all genius, those words mean the same thing, and second of all are you fking kidding me? But the angst from hearing those words was nothing compared to the next words I heard right after I settled on what I insisted calling “The smaller one.”
“$4.95 please.”
“Holy Shit! Are you serious?”
“I’m sorry sir.”
“Fuck.” I couldn’t help myself.
“Can I help you with anything else?” she actually said this - probably because I was too stunned to move out of the way, and hadn’t yet reached for the $5 cup.
“Yes. Can you possibly pull out a gun and shoot me in the head?”
“I know. I’m sorry sir.”

So I’m wondering if our new language for food sizing is a result of our open door immigration policy, a rabbit-like proliferation of Starbucks or a bunch of assholes thinking they’re chic? Oh wait that’s the same as the Starbucks reason.

After the FIVE DOLLAR ice cream, about 100 yards down the hall are Dipping Dots. Now Christian is freaking out he wants those, and Karina needs to go potty right now! Which by the way is about a mile and a half in the opposite direction, and Justin is rambling non-stop about how every girl in the mall, including those around the corner, outside the mall, and in their cars on the way home, are all looking at him.

Christian wins this round, though Karina is confused as to why she can’t chase her ice cream with dipping dots, which thank Jesus are available in kids size….for $4.25.

My luck the girl tells me this is her first day even before I can order.
“OK I’ll have a kid’s size vanilla.”
“What flavor.”
Great, not only her first day working, her first day with her new brain.
“V.A.N.I.L.L.A”
“Vanilla, OK What Size?”
“I will have…a small, Kid’s size…Vanilla…in a cup.”
“Cup or cone?”
Holy shit! “Kid’s size cup please.”
“Vanilla right?”
Finally,…….she seems to be getting the hang of this.
BUT now her friend comes over to the counter and she loses interest in creating this Kid’s Vanilla Cup.
“Hi!!! (Pronounced HOY!) I can’t believe you came to seeeeeee meeeee!”
This is not happening. I kick myself to convince myself I’m not dreaming. Christian thinks this is funny, and begins to kick me in the shins.
I hand her a five for a $4.95 cup and she hands me back $1.25
Normally, I would hand it right back – but she’s now on the phone with her boyfriend and she’s turned her back is to me – so screw it.

I have to pick up Karina to walk her to the potty, while poor Christian has to eat and walk, dropping tri-colored dots over the sides of his bol poco (That’s Spanish for “bowl smaller than grande”) – and Justin now again reminds me he’s hungry for dinner.

Karina sits on the potty for 20 minutes because she can’t go but feels like she has to. I take this almost quiet time to ponder if there’s any meaning at all to life, and wondering how and why I’m here. My Solomon moment over we head to the food court.

The food court is the same nightmare – Justin wants Taco Bell, Karina wants a coke and Christian wants me to go with him to a completely different location to show me something that he can’t verbalize.

First I have a short conversation with Justin because I’ve noticed that his Hollister T-shirt, which apparently cost me $35 according to my last credit card statement, not because I ever agreed to such a thing.

Scattered around the mall are teens and 20 somethings wearing assorted Hollister merchandise, and I ask my son, don’t you realize that these clothes could just as easily say “Random” and don’t you realize that being cool is NOT being one of the crowd?
“You don’t understand teens dad.”
Yeah I do – and I understand that then just as now, being cool meant being different, not the same. Wearing what the hell you wanted and liked, not what the masses are wearing. A losing battle, and perhaps hypocritical considering my own history – but a $10 Gap Pocket T-shirt didn’t say GAP back then.

“Dad, people think I’m cool with this shirt.” He believes this with all of his teenage mind. “Don’t you think those people over there are cool with theirs?” he actually sets this one up for me

“No – I think they’re schmucks too. Watch your sister.”

Justin sits with Karina while I let Christian drag me a few hundred yards mumbling something about “another place” before I stop and just get down on my knees and beg him to let me go back. He simply shrugs and says OK.

When I get back Justin has stuffed two taco “GRANDE’S” (or is it Grande Tacos? depending on what country this is) down his throat and now wants a meatball hero from Subway. My wife calls to say she’s bored.

In order to have a few minutes to vent to or perhaps at my wife - I hand him $10. He asks me if that’s going to be enough. Does he plan on getting two Meatball hero’s or does he just not have a clue – I don’t know because I’m listening to my wife talk about her latest case of neglected child syndrome and wondering again why I have three kids at the mall on a Monday night.