I cannot say that I was always enthused about shopping for school clothes. I have to admit, however, that I loved the smell of new jeans, and the snap of the rubber on new tennis shoes always made me feel like I could jump a little higher and run a little faster. Those were good things. Shopping for them was merely the price I had to pay for them. Furthermore, a modern department store always contained wonderful things to behold. Not that my mother was foolish enough to take me near the toy section at such times. She was far too wise for that. “Do your best to avoid anything that will distract the kid and make him want what you can’t afford,” was her unspoken motto. It was a sentiment that had the wholehearted support of my father. Not that he was foolish enough to join us on shopping trips. Like most men, he did not have the patients to shop, particularly with kids in tow. This was a task he gladly delegated.
When reading my descriptions of the wonderful things to behold at modern department stores the reader should bear in mind that I am talking about the BC era. Forget the arguments about “common era” as opposed to designating time periods as being before Christ and after Christ. The BC I am referring to has nothing to do with that. In spite of what a younger generation might think, I am not old enough to give a first hand account of that BC era. The BC era I am referring to is before computers. The greatest technological marvel of that time was nuclear energy. Now that the genie was out of the bottle, scientists were eager to put him to use. Doctors and dentists were using x-rays, and department stores were using a device called a fluoroscope. Oh, how modern! The advertisements proudly touted the use of this device. “It takes the guess work out of buying shoes, and it assures you of a perfect fit,” the advertisements said. Well, it sort of did. Perfect fit can be a subjective term when it comes to buying shoes for your children.
I put on the shoes mom thought she wanted to purchase for me. I then slid my feet onto the platform beneath the lens of the fluoroscope. Voila! There were my feet, clearly visible on the screen in front of me. Mom and the shoe salesman were staring intently at the same screen. They were engaged in a discussion about how much room there was for growth. There was a delicate balance that had to be struck here. The shoes had to be small enough to keep from slopping around on my feet when I walked, but they also had to leave enough room to keep me from growing out of them too soon.
“Wiggle your toes!”
Seeing my toes wiggle made me giggle. For a brief moment I was superman with x-ray vision that allowed me to see through my shoes. I wondered what would appear on the screen if I slid my butt under the lens. If my butt was facing up, could people see me break wind? I knew better than to ask. It would have embarrassed mom. She did not approve of talk about farting.
No one thought much about the price the genie might by charging for his services. I am told that people of my generation did not receive enough exposure to be detrimental. It was the shoe salesmen who were exposed to enough radiation to pay the genie’s price. For me the fluoroscope was simply a wondrous thing. The next wondrous thing was not so technically advanced or potentially harmful. Most adults knew how it worked, but it was really magical to a child. It was the pneumatic tubes. The pneumatic tubes transported containers holding checks and other documents describing the items being purchased. Ah, but those vehicles were not merely containers. The salespeople called them cars. It seemed like a silly thing to call them. They did not even have wheels. I would have called them bullets or rockets or something like that, but who was I to question what adults call things. I did not question what my dad called his car when it fell off the jack while he was trying to change a tire, but I did learn some pretty useful words from that event.
One of the cars arrived at the cashier’s station with a thud. This was followed by the ding of a bell, as if the thud was not enough to alert the cashier. The cashier placed mom’s check and some other paper into the car. He then placed the car into the tube, closed the tube, and pressed a button. Whoosh! The car shot straight up into a pipe and disappeared.
“Where’d it go?” I asked.
“To an office somewhere,” mom replied.
I did not tell her so, but I found that hard to believe. The car was far too amazing to go to some ordinary office. My dad had an office. He was powerful but not that amazing. The car had to have shot up to a castle tower or some place like that, and there had to be wizard there. A few minutes later there was a thud and a ding. The cashier opened the tube and then opened the car. He removed some paper that looked very much like the paper he had put in the car. Did the car simply make a round trip? Subsequent events proved that there had to be another answer. The wizard must have waved his wand at it as it flew by. He must have granted mom’s wish because she was allowed to leave the store with her purchases. I can remember wishing that the tubes and the cars were large enough to take me for a ride. The ride would have been scary but fun. I really wanted to know where those cars went, even if it meant meeting a frightening wizard.
The next stop was the five and dime, or the ten cent store as it was sometimes called. As mom explained, the department store charged more for school supplies than the five and dime did. The first thing that hit you when you entered the five and dime was the smell of popcorn. They were always popping corn there. This made my mouth water, and that made it difficult for me to keep from fidgeting as mom was buying pencils, erasers, paper and such. I never asked mom to buy me popcorn. I knew she had something better in mind. She always bought both of us ice cream cones. Mine was a reward for behaving myself. I thought hers was also a reward to herself, but she might have been following the adage about not grocery shopping when hungry. I like the idea of it being a reward better.
At any rate, the grocery store was our next stop. Although she tried to get me involved by asking me if there was something special I wanted for dinner, I still did not like grocery shopping. The one cool thing about going to the grocery store was the produce section. It was not the produce I found so appealing; it was the sprinklers the store used to keep the produce fresh. Mom told me the sprinklers were on a timer. They would go on for a few minutes and then they would shut off for five minutes or so. Even though I did not have a watch I got pretty good at timing them. I really enjoyed watching people reaching for a head of lettuce or something. The look on a lady’s face when the sprinklers came on and soaked her arm was priceless. Watching people at the produce section became a game. If one of my sisters had been there, we could have had a contest. Does this lady have the sprinklers timed or will she get her arm wet? You could not tell that from a lady’s age. It really had more to do with how often she shopped at that store.
I did not know much about other grocery stores. Mom was and still is a creature of habit. She likes going to places where she knows the layout and the people there know her. Did other stores have their sprinklers on timers? Did other stores have sprinklers? If they did not have sprinklers, someone probably had to dampen the produce with a hose. That was far too primitive and no fun at all. I would have gladly waited at the produce section while mom did the rest of her shopping, but she always insisted on me traipsing through the store with her.
Once we were home I went outside to test my new tennis shoes by running and jumping. The first day of school meant seeing friends I did not see during the summer, and I was looking forward to showing them how much faster I was in my new shoes. That was kind of exciting. It did not take long for the excitement to wear off. We spent a lot more time in the classroom than we spent at recess, and there was homework. I was not much of scholar, but that is another story.
First published in macsbackporch.blogspot.com on Oct. 7, 2009
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