St. Visa, the Patron Saint of Shopping

Dawn breaks on the first full day of vacation with the Lockhorns.

Oddly, it is quiet except for an occasional cicada and the sound of rain gently falling on the canopy of broad leafed trees.

I tiptoe to the kitchen to make coffee and find a note. It’s from Mom.

The note tells me they’ve gotten an early start to the antique auction an hour away. (I am instantly calculating the estimated duration of the peace and quiet.) They’ve made a pot of French Roast (“in that coffee machine of your sister's that I hate”) and though they’ve taken some in their thermos, I am welcome to the (thimble of) coffee that remains in the pot. And the trash I put out last night had been “gotten into” by some wild animal and she’d cleaned it up and placed it in a more appropriate bag but “we’ll have to be more careful.”

Really, Mom? Do you have to document every favor and act of kindness? Shall I leave a nice note remarking that I consider it a gift that I did not smother them in their sleep and they get to live to put their feet on the floor another time?

I make coffee sufficient for J. and I to rev up to face the day with Mom, and his drive home. He needs to get home to return his mother’s car to her before Mass. They’d traded cars for the weekend – she’d needed more passenger room for a trip out with some gal pals, a few of which had recently stopped driving. He also needs to ask her about the blond nylon wig he found in the back seat pocket. And allow himself to be convinced that his cute little roly-poly brunette mother with the ultra-pink lipstick is not going around knocking off banks disguised as Carol Channing.

I see J. off with a kiss and a crushing sense of impending doom. Somewhere between the first and second pots of coffee I get a brilliant idea as to how we might make lemonade out of the lemons the weather and my mother have given us.

I make plans to go and spend the afternoon at the outlets – A day of back to school shopping at its discounted, frenzied best!

We enjoy breakfast on the porch, dress and prepare for a day of shopping. Since we are in a technology-free zone, I rely on J. to look up the directions online and dictate them to me over the phone. We are just about to dash when the phone rings. Mom.

“Oh-what-a-place-you-should-have-seen-the-great-stuff-we-got-a-beautiful-blanket-chest-you’ll-have-to-come-out-and-see-it-we-would-have-gotten-a-gorgeous-armoire-but-it-would-not-fit-in-the-back-of-the-car-Bill-needs-a-little-nap-I’d-love-to-come-to-the-outlets-with-you!”

So close.

They come home. We ooh and ahh over the blanket chest. We hear Bill’s description of the armoire and his one-that-got-away lament. Mom fixes him a sandwich and he heads off to bed. We are on our way.

Mom wants to drive.

I would sooner let Lucy and Ethel drive.

She insists.

I am ready to skip the whole thing.

In the end, I settle for an only marginally less nerve-wracking arrangement. I am driving and Mom is shotgun reading the directions.

There is not enough retail therapy in the world to fix this.