GUY SHOPPING

The weekend had finally come and I was planning on doing nothing but sitting on my deck reading a good book.

That is until my son, Alex came out the kitchen door and said, “Hey, I think I might need new shorts.” He was holding up a pair of khaki shorts with one pocket ripped and the hems frayed on both legs.

Now, that might not sound like much to many people but, when Alex says he might need to go shopping ,you RUN to the car thanking whoever it was that told him his clothes were years old and looked awful.

“Yeah, I've been telling you that you needed new stuff since you took out your summer clothes.” I said calmly getting up, trying not to make any sudden moves and spooking him. “Would you like to run over to the mall?” I casually asked as I picked up my still warm cup of tea ready to toss it in the sink and get the car keys before he knew what was happening to him.

“I thought maybe you could just sew the pocket for me.” he said.

“Hmm.” I looked at the shorts he was holding out to me, pretending I was interested in trying to fix them. “I'm sorry, they seem too far gone to fix.” I was deliberately inching my way to the door, watching to make sure he was following me. “Maybe we should go to the mall?”

“The mall?” he seemed unsure. “Are you sure you can't just fix these?”

“Hey,” I tried to sound as if I'd just come up with this idea. “Maybe while we're there we can look at a few shirts, maybe even some pants?”

“Wait a minute.” He said. He'd stopped moving,

I'd gone too far and said too much too quickly. I regrouped. “No you're right, maybe a quick trip just to replace those shorts.”

“Oh.” he seemed relieved. “Maybe I do need a new pair.” He was moving towards the door again.

I grabbed my car keys and quickly walked to the car, not even yelling out to Steven where we were going. I felt like my window of opportunity was closing and I didn't want to stop for anything.

Once we were at the mall wandering through the racks of clothes I began loading his arms with shorts, pants, bathing suits, and shirts I was almost giddy with the luck I was having finding his size and the colors he liked.

I smiled as I passed other moms with their sons following them, their arms filled with clothes and bewildered looks in their eyes as if they had no idea how they got there.

One lucky mom was actually having her son try on suit jackets, I was envious but I knew Alex's limits on this trip and I needed to keep it under an hour of shopping.

Once his arms were filled I headed his toward the fitting room where woman of all ages were outside the entrance waiting for their loved ones to come out and be told if they were buying that particular item.

As Alex found an empty room and dropped the pile of clothes on the chair I had to laugh at the baffled look of his face as he gazed at the amount of clothes he needed to try on.

Once his door was closed I looked over at the other women, giving a slight shrug and getting quick head nods back, our silent high five to each other for getting the guys we were with that far. None of us wanted to go too far in praising one another, just in case one of the guys came out of their fitting room, saw us and finally knew for sure they'd been tricked. We couldn't risk any of them alerting the rest of the fitting room.