The Reluctant Shopping Mission

We woke up this crisp, sunny but windy Sunday morning and I sleepily wondered what we'd do today. After a very full and extremely hectic week this was Sunday, a day of rest per our Good Lord, yet I somehow got it into my head that today was the day we'd go shopping for my pre-teen's Confirmation clothes. Oh, Good Lord....

My boy DETESTS clothes shopping and believe me, I'm also a very reluctant shopper. I find it very interesting at this point to note that the auto-checker chose the word 'sniper' instead of 'shopper' in my last sentence. Remember that.

So, I played the usual battle of wits in order to extricate him from his current infatuation interest that is Minecraft and to brush his teeth so we could  take the first step in today's  ordeal  journey..... and simply leave the house!

Getting to town on the Dart was, thankfully, uneventful and we then executed the next part of my rushed carefully thought out plan. We hit my highly considered one-stop-shop, which would hopefully contain everything we needed, and went into Arnotts. The shop we went to for his Communion clothes. It worked 3 and a half years ago so it should work now. Right?

Well, 3 and a half years ago he was only 8 and now my pre-teener is all of 12 years old. Have you recently gone shopping for pre-teen and teenage boys?? The limited choices are shocking. Seriously, if I had any kind of an entrepreneurial  brain in my head I would exploit this niche in the market. And I'd expand it to include toiletry products for this totally ignored socio-economic group.

Anyway we, stupidly as it turned out, headed for the children's department to search through their limited stock for his age group. And this is where the Reluctant Shopper in me showed it's true self. Oh good God, all those rails of clothes to organize and plan a search through. Disorganized Jazzy here cannot cope with that at all. So I approached an unsuspecting salesgirl and imperceptibly turned her into my personal shopper. Good thinking, eh?

We managed to find a shirt but not trousers. Note: the ultimate aim of this foray into the sensorally challenging environment that is town was to find appropriate, yet not too casual attire, that felt 'comfty' to my very perceptive son. The Levis shirt in soft brushed cotton fit the bill and was at a very good January Sale price;-) As was another Timberland top. We bought both,  just in case like.

As we didn't find trousers we failed in the other aim of our mission, that to try on any choices as quickly as possible in order to get the hell out of there in double quick time.

That meant a further search which I limited to the same shop and we headed downstairs to the Men's Department, in the vain hope we'd find something suitable. In double-quick time. Tick Tock....

Oh God. Downstairs was a nightmare menage of multiple Men's Concession shops spread far and wide. What to do? Neither of us could cope with that at all. Tick Tock.... Suddenly I remembered one trendy shop in the many my personal shopper mentioned and we headed further downstairs, to Top Shop. And there I found me another Personal Shopper! I'm getting good at this, I thought to myself! My boy played a blinder and tried on everything whilst amusing me with some posing in front of the mirror. I don't know where he got that from, honestly!!

I am very pleased to announce that we completely finished the job in this shop and accomplished all the aims of our Reluctant Shopping Mission. In double quick time.

Until stressed out teen decided he needed to go to the bathroom. In the multi-storied Arnotts.

Dear Arnotts:Why did you  put your bathrooms in the furthest, upper-most corners of your store? And what were you thinking when you put the Men's and Women's bathrooms on different floors??? Good Lord. That was almost the straw that broke the camel's back for us two Reluctant Shoppers. Shopping is very stressful for parents and children with ASD you know. We were very close to a serious meltdown of epic proportions and you should know that I  would have held you personally responsible for the outcome. I mean, How on earth do you expect a 12 year old to survive the trauma of seeing his mother rolling on the floor screaming her head off like in that supermarket ad??? Where's that 'sniper' when you need one, eh???

Ahem.... moving swiftly on....

On to treat shopping in his favoured Game Stop shop to disappointingly find nothing of interest. Feeling very sorry for himself we headed off for yummy pizza to end our stressful, yet successful shopping trip. On the way we came across a very interesting shop that we'd never heard of before.... Games Workshop. Wow, it looked like a lot of fun, so in  we went and were given a trial run! This is live soldier/fantasy type games we're talking about here. With tiny characters you buy and paint yourself. Yeah, a real game played in real life and not on a screen. Yay! They have workshops every Sunday and this is the only store in Ireland. It is an expensive hobby though as the starter kit for the Warhammer 40,000 costs €79. My boy has found a new infatuation interest it seems.....sigh.

Eventually we made it to the restaurant and we had a lovely meal and chat. It ended with true WiiBoy humour at desert ordering time, when he read the list of non-alcoholic drinks which was listed after the desert options.  It went something like this...

WiiBoy: Look at that mum he said, giggling.

Me: What?

WiiBoy: 'Safe Sex on the Beach'....teeheehee.... I know what that means... teeheehee


Me: Really? .......(really'???....did I HAVE to say that??!)


WiiBoy: (Boy voice) I have the condom..... (Girl Voice) I have the pill...


Me: Silence....apart from splurting my wine.... everywhere!!!

Time to vacate the premises.

Oh, thank God this day is over!!

xx