Buying School Supplies & Clothes

Mom and I go to the mall again, for the second time in a row. At this rate, I’m going to spend more time there than in my house, but that doesn’t sound that bad - Honestly, it would be awesome if I could hang out there everyday, I hope I get to do that later… when I actually make friends. But as we are not exploring the city anymore, we don’t waste time walking, and take a bus straight to the mall.

As we make our way to the mall, I still get to see some of the places we got to explore yesterday. We have to go through the main avenue at the coast, crossed the plaza with the Jordan Pimpson’s statue, and passed by all the brothels and sex shops in downtown. We finally reach the huge mall, but we enter through another access point, because the main one always seems to be full. And while it does take us a little longer to walk around the mall, it is totally worth it.

We enter the mall near the tunnel that divides it in two parts, and we quickly spot a school supply store on the second floor, so we head there immediately. I’m pretty sure I have little school supplies, so I do need quite a few things, but the amount of stuff mom buys is just excessive. She buys two of every item she can find. I’m probably never going to use some of that stuff in my entire life, but she just buys it all.

But as concerning as her money spending habit is to see, I can’t say anything to her, because she is always like that. I’ve tried to tell her that she spends too much money, and most of it goes to waste, but she never listens. I don’t have to worry though, since dad is rich, and he could buy a whole school if he needed to -- but it's still weird that she spends more than double her wage every month.

I get distracted for a second, as I find a few cool pencils I want. I grab a few of them, but when I turn around, I find my mother on the counter, already buying everything, but it takes me a while to realize what she really bought. She has 4 large bags filled with books, and all sorts of school supplies. It is absolutely insane for her to buy this much, and I can’t stand here doing nothing, I need to tell her this is excessive -- mainly because I know I will have to carry all those bags later.

“Mom, I know I don’t have anything for school, but do you really think this is necessary?... I mean, it seems like a lot… even for 4 years I’m going to be there” - I tell my mom, but she doesn’t seem to be paying attention to me. She looks at me briefly, then just smiles, and proceeds to make the purchase -- which is the exact same thing she always does, so I’m already used to it. So as I know I can’t complain, I just have to accept the fact that mom is obsessed with spending large amounts of money, and it might ruin our lives soon -- unless we are still getting money from dad’s company.

The hardest thing for me to accept is mom’s order to carry all 4 large, heavy bags around the mall, probably for the rest of the entire day. It is absolute ****, and even though she tries to help me, I feel like my muscles are going to give out at any point. Thankfully, we make another stop at the mall, as we are now going to one of the two general stores. We step into this huge store, and it literally has thousands of items, with countless clothing brands, decoration stuff, even some games, electronics, everything -- and while it is cool to see, this means that we are going to spend several hours in here.

Oh no, I already know what’s about to happen… Well, I guess this will be my life now, I’m going to be stuck in this store for the entire day… I hope I have some games on my phone to keep myself entertained… - I think to myself in disappointment, I don’t even need to think about it anymore. Since I don’t have that many clothes back home, it is obvious that mom is about to go on a buying spree, and probably give me twice the amount of bags to carry.

I still have to carry these bags around, but mom is basically stopping at every aisle for a few minutes, so I’m able to relax my muscles a bit. It seems like she is grabbing every type of clothes she could find, and we even need a shopping cart to fit all the things she wants to purchase. Thankfully, I no longer have to carry these bags, but I still have to wait for mom to finish buying clothes. I honestly don’t know if this is better, I think I prefer carrying bags than waiting, but at least I’m able to do other stuff while she shops.

Mom continues to shop around, and I ask her for permission to explore this store a little. I think she probably didn’t notice I was trying to ask her something, but I’m too bored to keep watching her struggle to decide what color of a shirt she liked better. So while I had to stay near mom, I can still explore the store, and see if there is anything fun to do. I find the electronics section rather quickly, and there seems to be a console to play a few games, free of use -- and since that seems like the only thing fun here, I decide to play for as long as I can.

I actually have a nice time playing these games, even if I’m surrounded by people, and I don’t want to play badly in public. I also have to take turns with a few kids, because I can’t just use this console for myself, but I have no problem sharing. I keep playing for what feels like half an hour, but after I’m done, I notice that two hours have gone by - Oh god… This is good, right?.. I mean, I didn’t even notice so much time passed because I was having fun… But that also means mom had plenty of time to buy more clothes… Oh no, I have to go…

After realizing that I may have made a terrible mistake, I run looking for mom in this store. I’m afraid she might think I’m lost, but my main concern is the amount of things she has bought during this time. I feel like it would be impossible to convince her not to spend so much money, but I can definitely prevent her from buying so much, I’ve done it before. But since I just left for two hours, mom probably had the best opportunity to waste as much money as she could, and that seems to be the unfortunate case.

I finally find mom, but I’m not too pleased to see her. I quickly approach her, but I can already see that she is still focusing on shopping. Even when I’m standing next to her, it seems like she didn’t even notice I was gone. But after she looks around the shoe section, she finally turns her attention to me, and she acts as normal as ever -- which would usually be nice to see, but not in this context.

“Oh, hi sweetie… Did you have any fun?” - mom asks me casually, like I didn’t just spend two hours away from her. I can’t believe she is still shopping after all this time, but I should have expected it. But as I only nod to her question, I’m more upset to see that this is far from over.

“Alright, I need you to try these clothes on… Tell me if they are the right size, I’ll be at that counter, okay?” - mom says to me, and even though I knew I would have to do this at some point, I can’t help but get angry. There’s not much I can do now though, I won’t argue with my mother, and I’m definitely not even going to try to convince her to get rid of some clothes, because that would probably take longer to sort out. So with no hope left, I just let out a sigh, before I take all these clothes to the nearest dressing room.

Apparently mom bought more clothes for her than for me, which is nice, because I don’t have to try on so many, but a little disappointing - I thought we were supposed to buy stuff for me?... Why is half of the things she bought only for her?. I try not to question it anymore, I just want to be done with this. So after I open the curtains to one of the changing stalls, I place all my clothes inside, and they almost take half the space. I can’t even imagine how all of this is going to fit in my closet, so I need to come up with a way to stop mom from buying these many clothes.

I have to come up with excuses for mom to buy me fewer clothes, but I still have to try every single shirt, hoodie, jeans, jacket, and pretty much everything she bought for me. So while it does take me almost a full hour to try on all these clothes, I finally try on the last item, which is a long sleeved shirt with a cool design. I really like this shirt, but it’s one of the very few that I actually like. Mom always buys ugly shirts for me, mainly because she doesn’t want me wearing plain ones, so she always chooses ones with designs -- the problem is that most of those designs suck, so that’s why I only wear plain shirts.

I managed to choose about 20 pieces of clothing I actually liked, and I can finally leave the stall. Unfortunately, mom appears to have bought more stuff while I was in the changing rooms, but at least it’s not for me -- even though it does take more space in the cart. She seems to be done shopping though, so she is waiting for me at the counter, where I walk in defeat towards.

“So, how did it go?” - mom asks me casually, but I’m too tired to give her a response.

“Almost all of them were the wrong size… but at least I like these three hoodies” - I respond, pretty much dead inside, and not even trying to think about buying anything else for the next four years. Mom seems surprised to hear my response, but it feels like she made me try on clothes that barely even fit me on purpose, probably to waste my time, mess with me, or give herself some time to shop more - Yea, I think I know which one is the most likely.

But after I bring mom all the clothes I do want her to buy for me, which are only a small fraction of everything I had to try on, we are finally done with this store. Mom finishes the purchase, and we are left with a cart full of bags, which I’m unlucky enough to have to drive around the mall - Oh great, as long as we don’t buy anything else I can deal with this… No I can’t, I’m already tired, and hungry...

Thankfully, we head out to the food court to see what we can eat first. And since this mall offers lockers to store our belongings, we can leave all the things mom bought safe, while we enjoy some nice food at the mall -- although we do have to buy pretty much every locker, so mom just keeps spending money.