If there is anything our family is addicted to it is shopping at our favorite store, Old Navy. We love that store. We love the discounts and the crazy huge clearance rack. We think every family should dress as cool as our kids do with skulls and graphic tees. My wife Looks fantastic in Old navy clothes and the clearance rack feeds my t-shirt addiction.
There is, however one thing I can’t stand about Old Navy. I hate the way the store was designed. See the shelves and racks are make perfect hiding places for any size child. Even an adult could climb into the rack and find themselves walking through to the land of Narnia.
It never fails. Every time I go there one or more of my kids concoct a genius plan that they are going to hide in a rack. So they climb in to a rack, possibly enticed by the white witches’ Turkish delight on the other side. I turn around and they are gone!! There is honestly no worse feeling in the life of a parent than the feeling that their kid has disappeared.
I try to remain calm and call the escapee. “COLLIN!” I quietly yell.
No response. “COLLIN!!! COME HERE!!” he still doesn’t respond.
Now I have to make a decision. Do I run around freaking out and knocking things over? Do I run to the front of the store and take down anybody that looks shady? A thousand things run through my mind including the fact that I will most likely have to replace my pants after this incident.
Then I hear a giggle from the hanging plaid shorts.
I growl and tell my boy to get out of the rack. I choose to lecture him about getting lost, strangers, playing tricks on people, scaring the crap out of his parents and more. Overkill? Of course it is! I am long winded, but these days you never know what might happen and it scares me to death the idea of losing one of my kids.
I will not lose a kid to the plaid pants vortex at Old Navy!
Any parents reading this ever get a scare like that? Do you bring extra pants in the car?
I remember we lost my then-4-year-old son at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Absolutely terrifying. He had found a video and sat down to watch it, completely oblivious to the rest of us moving on. I think it took about 20 minutes to find him, and I was sick to my stomach with fear.
HAHAHAAA!!! I just had to laugh through this whole thing. My boys do the same thing and all I can think is, they MUST be the spawn of some evil villain to watch me panic and fluster, and then LAUGH!!! Yet I find myself laughing imagining Collin doing the same thing to you, but really it was the change of pants that got me. I,too, have gone all out with lectures after the racks have enveloped my children. But I fear Narnia will still call them…and we’ll still need to bring a spare pair of pants.
Staples, with their makeshift aisles of back to school supplies (translate: visual barricades for children to hide behind) is pretty rough too. Add to the lecture list the ominous manager: “Do you want the store manager to ask us to leave because you aren’t behaving? If you can’t stick with us they will kick us out of the store. Then we won’t buy ANYTHING.” I know, I’m a mean mom.
@darren – that would be crazy scary!
@melanie – spawn of an evil villain. ha ha!! classic!
@heather – wow…totally forgot about that at stables… they put those huge pallets of junk in aisles..
Maybe we all need to learn how to bribe our kids better. ha!