Let me preface this story by painting you a not-so-pretty picture. An awkward, chubby middle schooler who has never met a bell bottom she didn't like and has never met a hair straightener period stands in the dressing room at Aeropostale. She has managed to find 3 distinct clothing items she can afford. A pair of discontinued jeans, a camisole and a 50% off sweatshirt. The jeans are a safe bet, she will definitely wear jeans, but the sweatshirt says AEROPOSTALE in big letters across the chest. Without the store name emblazoned on her, how would her classmates know that she had paid $25 for THIS polyester blend instead of a more sensible $7 on Walmart's version? How would they know she was cool?
Believe it or not...that girl was me. In middle school I was burdened with not just a widow's peak that rivaled the Mariana Trench but also parents who didn't believe in "debt" or "popularity" because even though my parents are relatively young it has always been the 1930s in my house. My mother once told me that buying a bag of ice for $2 at the beach to fill our cooler was wasteful. No matter how fervently my mother refused to pay $45 for Rainbows, buy any Apple products or let me wear makeup not manufactured by Lip Smackers, she did her part to help me be cool in middle school. Correction...she did her part to help me TRY to be cool in middle school. My classmates will tell you it did not work.
(See picture below and note that my lips are REFLECTIVE. Sixth grade was not kind to me.)
My long-suffering mother did her time in Aeropostale dressing rooms and once I stopped caring what people thought, she was done. Like a wounded deer who's seen too much, she retreated to the relative safety of Belk and J.C. Penney.
Suffice it to say my brothers and I are not used to malls. When I was little my parents used to take me to the mall in Fayetteville where I thought that the Disney Store was Disney World. But then my parents got greedy. They tried to beat the house. I was gifted with not one, but two brothers. No more trips to Disney World for me. Not even the Disney Store. I started sporting the latest Sam-me-downs (hand-me-downs from my cousin Sam). By the time Colby was old enough to shop, my parents had really dropped the ball on parenting.* Not so much dropped the ball, but threw it into someone else's court. More specifically, my court. But living an hour away there's only so much I can do. So when Colby went to the mall with his friends, my poor little brother had no idea how food courts worked.
After checking out Foot Locker and the candy machines, a group of boys including my youngest brother went to the food court for lunch. Colby wanted to eat at a different place than his friends, so they split up. Once he got his food I imagine my brother was surprised to find that his friends weren't right behind him but somewhere across the seating area. Instead of walking over to the restaurant his friends had patronized, he stayed where he was and sat down alone at a table for 4. Now that breaks my heart. I hate seeing anyone eat alone and have been known to cry in public when witnessing it. I like to think that's a very proactive approach to the situation because then I become the pathetic loser and people pay more attention to the train wreck crying in Applebee's than the gentleman calmly enjoying baby back ribs for one with the sports section.
Anyways, Colby is sitting alone, I'm screaming internally, and before he has finished his food a group of 4 kids ask my brother if they can have his table. I would have probably gone to the bathroom, cried and called my grandfather. Hopefully in that order. But Colby gives up his spot and scans the tables again. Still not seeing his friends, he decides to sit across from a 40-something male who is also alone...until his daughter joins him a few minutes later. It was at this newly implemented community table that my brother finished his meal and made small talk with the man who was kind enough to strike up a conversation with him instead of taking him to the lost & found.
This whole montage is insanely depressing if you approach it as my-little-brother-sitting-all-alone-with-no-friends. But! When you think of it as kid-has-never-been-to-a-food-court-and-sits-with-grown-man-while-saying-nothing it's hilarious. And impressive. I would probably still be reliving the humiliation in my room but Colby took it in stride. I really think he looks at the situation as meeting someone new and trying new food instead of comparing the experience to Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers like I would have done.
My mother actually describes me and my brothers as characters in The Wizard of Oz, except that the characteristics Dorothy's crew was missing are the traits that we each have. So I'm the scarecrow, the brains of the operation. Patrick is the tin man, the most compassionate (I don't see it) and Colby is the cowardly lion, the brave one. Independent. Self-assured. Completely unfamiliar with modern food court customs, but brave nonetheless.
*In their defense, my parents are actually mad decent at parenting (albeit a little fascist for my taste). My brothers and I are just idiots.
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