Lesson #15,079-Shopping With A Teenage Boy...SMH

Okay, for those of you who don't know what SMH stands for, it stands for "Shaking my head".  Yep, that's teen lingo.  Lingo is also slang.  Slang is now their abbreviations for everything and the list is ever-changing. Did y'all know that LOL is out?  Totally not cool anymore!! Per my 13-year old, nobody uses that anymore! I guess I had better stop using it or else I am not going to be cool!!  Oh yeah, that ship sailed a long time ago.  As a matter of fact, I am not sure that I was ever cool.  Certainly not in high school.  Maybe I thought I was in college, but I really wasn't.  I absolutely, positively am no longer cool, if I ever was. 

Shopping with a teenage boy has made me realize just how uncool I am.  Well, we go into this store called Abercrombie & Fitch and I have to leave because the overwhelming smell of their cologne gave me a migraine.  After that we went to the Puma store and that store's prices gave me a migraine.  Then we went to a store called Hollister.  Have y'all ever been inside one of these stores?  If any of you do drugs, do not go in there.  Seriously, if you have a seizure disorder, you cannot shop in there.  If you are prone to panic attacks, you cannot shop in there.  If you are afraid of the dark, you cannot shop in there.  The music is so loud that your eardrums vibrate and pound audibly in your head.  It is so dark that I pulled out my flashlight and my son made me put it away.  I stumped my freaking toe and banged my knee on the way out of there.  And the fumes coming off of every surface in that store made me lightheaded and dizzy.  Now, I have never dropped acid before but I have a feeling that it isn't much different than a trip inside a Hollister store.  I couldn't see a darn thing so maybe we will shop online from that store.  Seriously, why would you want to have your store so dark, so loud and so smelly?  That is one way to keep the 40 something crowd out of your store.  Come to think of it, I have never seen anyone my age wearing anything from Hollister.  They are missing out on a whole crowd of people who probably have the money to shop in their store.  These teenagers walking around in this store don't have jobs!! Their parents have the money!!  Turn up the lights.  Turn down the music and tone down the cologne cloud that greets everyone at the door and I bet your sales go up through the roof!!  I left that mall with a booming migraine after going in Hollister and I swear to you that I never saw anything in the store!! If holding your ears, covering your nose and mouth, and squinting don't bother you then Hollister is your store!!

After throwing up and taking a narcotic for my migraine, we went to the food court.  Look around.  There are 20 restaurants of all types around us.  What does my child pick?  Not Sbarro!! The largest piece of pizza that you have ever seen.  Not Great Wall of China!! The best Lo Mein noodles on the planet.  Not Great Steak where they give you a "cup" of real fried potatoes!!  He chooses McDonald's!!  Apparently, that is the cool place to eat among 13-year old boys.  Seriously?  We have McDonald's on every corner!!  Get yourself a giant piece of pizza!!  Get a lunch of Annie's Pretzels!!  Just eat something that you don't usually get to have!!  I'm gonna have a side of beef, slathered with cheese and a large Coke!! We can't get this on every street corner!!

Anyway, shopping with a teenage boy is a joy...No, Really.