A Little Retail Therapy

What do you do with a teenage girl who is so bored she may die (or so she claims)?

Go to the Mall.

We don't have a Mall in our town, so we drove an hour south to the closest city. My good friend Jody joined us and we three girls indulged our cravings for shiny new things, especially Queen Teen. She had a gift card to Justice where she picked out a new dress. We also hit the Disney store where we reminisced about our trip while checking out the toys. Even Jody got into the spirit when she almost bought an Ariel tub toy (It was so cool! Her mermaid tail fluttered so she could swim).

I told Queen Teen she could buy a new toy and I expected her to grab some kind of Cinderella thing, but she surprised me when she chose a Tinker Bell stuffy. It appears that Cinderella may have slipped from the favorite position. Since we saw the Tinker Bell movie this weekend, Queen Teen has been enamored with Tinker Bell and all her friends. The stuffies were two-for-one, so she chose a Cinderella doll to go with Tinker Bell. But she kept Tinker Bell in her lap as we rolled around in her wheel chair and Cinderella got stuffed into the shopping bag. Poor Cinderella.

We left the mall and walked up a tree shaded street lined with shops and cafes. The weather was gorgeous; a good 20 degrees cooler than our home. After exploring, we sat in the lovely sunshine near a fountain in the town square where Queen Teen ate her snack and Jody and I drank lattes. Queen Teen rolled herself around the little park, enjoying some freedom, happy to be able to go outside without being seared by 105 degree heat.

Back at home, the retail therapy buzz lasted for a whole day. She was cheerful and happily played with her new dolls. But by the second day, the blues slowly crept back in. Too bad the mall cure is so short lived.