Potty training and the Target Demographic

My two year old is finally learning to use the potty. Whew. Biting the bullet, going through this experience for hopefully the last time.

He's doing pretty good at it, he's only soiled the carpet twice. I can live with that. In a couple of years I'll have forgotten what an arduous task it is to potty train a child. It's a lot more effective to give positive attention for his successes than to reprimand failures. So, as a reward for dropping a deuce into the terlet instead of his pants, we get to go to one of his meccas. Yep, as you might have guessed, it's the Thomas the Tank Engine Store at the not-so-local mall. OK, so you didn't guess it. But he was happier than a pig in slop to be there.

But that's not what this blog is about. It never is.

You see, a shopping mall is about the last place on earth that I enjoy spending time. Something happened between the time I was 17 and um, let's say more than 29. Oh yes, that's it. I am now responsible for all of my own living expenses and therefore wince at the thought of having to pay more than $40 for a pair of shoes or $25 fo a pair of jeans, let alone all of the other crap they have to sell there. Nowhere else have I ever felt like such a curmudgeon, so far out of the target demographic. God, I miss being in the target demographic for that which is hip and current.

Now, it seems like malls target only a) teenagers b) teenagers that do not yet have faceplates for their cell phones covered with flashing LEDs, c) women who need extreme makeovers, d) women who have had extreme makeovers, and need a bit of touch-up paint, and e) gay men who care about their appearance.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing anyone who identifies with any of the above group, but Tad here is a straight, soon-to-be-middle aged man who doesn't give 2 shits about his appearance. Maybe a shit and a half, but definitely not two. I don't care that deeply about what other people think. I'm in the software industry, where wearing a shirt with a collar is enough to get my teammates wondering what company I am interviewing with that day.

It's just that the mall to me is a crowded, overly-effeminate place to be. Again, nothing wrong with that, but it's just not where I am meant to be.

Yet I find myself there, amazingly and agonizingly, about twice a year. Usually once before Christmas (note - NOT the HOLIDAYS, it's Christmas, goddamit) and once invariably during the summer months. Each time, I find myself usually on the hook to find an obligatory gift for someone, and I find myself wandering aimlessly, looking for perfect obligation-fulfilling item to present itself in a display window, with regular retail price of hundreds of dollars conveniently marked down to my obligatory-gift-comfort level of about $4o.

I generally wind up gravitating to something that I imagine that I would enjoy, and usually that's in the tool department at Sears. They got them some tools that I wish I knew what they were for, and that I had a regular use for. Then I wonder if it would pass for the holy grail for which I've made this journey. "Would Mom like this belt sander? She's been talking about getting that dining room table refinished."

But today I had this freedom not. It was Thomas the Tank Engine store, and then search for new shoes for Thing 1 and Thing 2, which is how The Cat in the Hat would identify my two cherubic offspring. They're really good kids, and I know I'm really lucky to have them, but even good luck eventually gets old without a little bad luck to make things interesting.

OMIGOD what a sea of cosmetic displays, lotion shops - yes, entire stores dedicate to foo-foo skin care, and gay-mens fashions - again, not that it doesn't have its place. But that was another part of my good fortune - we got to leave after being unable to find a pair of shoes that did not hurt Thing 1's feet, and no two pair of size 8 kids sandals that were actually the same size.

I suppose that I am forever destined to be a self-unrealized unfashionable hetero-curmudgeon that would be a prime target for the Fab 5 at Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

Nah, I'm probably out of that demographic too.

Have a Nice Day,

Tad