Caught in The Trap

Is there anything worse than the mall on a Saturday afternoon? Apparently, there is. It’s shopping at the mall on March Break.

I took Stephanie to Sherway Gardens today to look for a costume for her jazz solo. Not surprisingly, we didn’t find one, but we did find the likes of Abercrombie and Fitch, and Hollister, as well as other overpriced shops seemingly intent on ripping off the guileless teenager, many of whom, according to my mother, sport ‘more money than brains.’

From personal experience, Barbara knows of what she speaks.

Believe me.

My mother, by the way, has every right to her beliefs, as she has endured my own artless retail years, then my sister’s, and now two granddaughters who, by all accounts, are willing and able to uphold the family tradition. The Matriarch (an apt description) has two other granddaughters waiting in the wings, eventually heading down that slippery slope to the onset of puberty and their own retail misfeasance. Her last hope at this point is that her only grandson will have the sense to stop the madness.

My 16 year-old informed me today that my most annoying habit (I wish!) is my expression when I catch sight of price tags. In truth, I couldn’t argue, as most of the time I’m quite aware of my shocked mien when I spot a $108.00 tag on a thin cotton sheath no more than a quarter-metre in length. And who - really - can justify spending $69.00 for a mere slice, a sliver, a shaving, of denim passed off as shorts?

Abercrombie & Fitch, and Hollister - arguably the strongest teenage magnets in retail history - are both sights to behold. With their appealing Cape Cod’ish beach-house exteriors, they exude style that could only rival Martha Stewart’s perfect saltbox in the Hamptons. A ‘good thing,’ perhaps, and one still expects to see a young, bronzed, Kennedy clan bounding about in Bermuda shorts and launching Boston Whalers into the choppy waters of Nantucket Sound for an afternoon sail. Then, when you finally slip through the entranceway, past the armchairs where frazzled parents and grandparents sit, and looking like shell-shocked soldiers fresh from a World War 1 trench, you’ll know you’ve entered “The Trap.”

Now, if you were around in the ’70s, you’ll be right at home in The Trap: Loud, blaring, music, dark lighting, teenagers milling about, their Abercrombie and Hollister logos emblazoned across their shirts and sweat pants. The heady scent of cheap perfume mixed like an alchemist’s nightmare doesn’t do wonders for “our side,” either, and if you haven’t had your daily ration of caffeine to steady the nausea, don’t forget your healthy dose of Gravol and Extra-Strength Tylenol.

My daughter, on the other hand, said she could detect the “beach” scent before we were even in the vicinity, and joked (I hope) that she felt “like a sniffer dog” ferreting out the slightest trace as we neared The Traps. Frankly, I couldn’t quite understand her obsession with the cheap (not monetarily speaking, of course) ‘perfume’ - and I use the term loosely. What worried me more was her highly-developed appreciation for the elixir.

So, after walking around Sherway God knows how many times, The Trap lured her into its intoxicating confines of marketing magic. Not alone, she was one of too many teenagers - eyes glazed and looking like Stepford children - hypnotized by the low light, the disco-pounding beat, and the aromatic plastic of credit and debit cards swiped one after the other. Not even the sounds of firm parental “NOs” and “That’s too much money!” drowning the equally pathetic “Please, Mom, I promise I won’t ask for anything else,” pleas, could compete with the retailing genius of the head-office and ad-agency execs.

We parents, I realize, are merely the Davids to the Goliaths of the rag trade. We don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell.

After saying my own ‘No’ to buying ridiculously high-priced clothing, most of which shouldn’t have cost any more than $25. a piece, I then endured the familiar refrains, “Why can’t I go shopping with Mrs. X in Toronto?” (name changed to protect the innocent… but she knows who she is) or, “Mrs. X would like these stores, she loves shopping as much as I do.”

“Go ahead,” said I, tempted to lob my jaded daughter in the direction of her Toronto icon.

Now, I don’t mind shopping as a rule. What I object to are the exorbitant prices some of these Traps have the audacity to charge for certain items. Are there any scruples, principles, or ethics, to be found at the head offices of these giants of commerce? Let’s face it, their clientèle, their ‘target’ consumer, are the teenaged set or the university types who, unless they’re engaged in illegal bartering, slog away at the likes of McDonalds and Burger King after school and on weekends and really don’t have the funds to squander on badly-ripped, stonewashed jeans with the “It” label firmly affixed.

As I ask both my girls, if you give these companies free advertising by paying (no less!) to wear their apparel, do you think anyone else is impressed if they see another assembly-line t-shirt with the store’s name stencilled on the back?”

The usual response, with a roll of the eyes, is invariably a drawn-out, “Mom, you just don’t get it!”

The end result was that I curbed my urge to put my daughter on the next GO train to Toronto to see said icon. Instead, I waited outside with another woman who had three offspring loose in The Trap. She told me wearily that not only does the dim light bother her eyes, but the blaring music gives her a day-long migraine, and she really didn’t want to face another wave of scent-induced nausea. “Usually,” she admitted, “I send my husband.”

Stephanie was still AWOL inside The Trap, buying two polos for what she promised was a “good deal,” or, at least that’s the line I bought into.

As you’ve figured by now, I gave in and allowed her to buy one reasonably priced item (hah!) and also one for her sister. Then we were leaving.

And we did. And none too soon.