When shopping is work...

ASid has realized that he does not have enough extracurricular activities to list on his university applications for next school year, Grade 12. So, he has been trying to find activities that he could participate in and add to his resume.

Lucky for him that he found an interesting 13 week program that simulates a business environment and tries to get participants to take on roles related to that business. He is 3 weeks into it and he "interviewed" for 2 roles and got one of them. He is the Tech Manager. Unfortunately, for ASid, managers have to dress up. This is a boy who loves his tees and jeans. He literally loathes dress shirts and slacks. Well, he has no choice now.

Today, he has an all-day conference and he has to dress up in business casual. He got this news on Wednesday and yesterday, Friday, he shopped for the first time with a purpose. He needed to buy stuff. Not like before when he bought stuff he wanted. The poor boy felt quite lost and recruited 2 of his friends (a boy and a girl) to help him. They apparently bailed on him and I got an SOS text from my boy. It simply said "Mom?"

The whole day, I sent him information on what to buy and where to buy. Yet, he needed to have a dialogue of sorts while he was in the middle of it all...all alone. He texted "Jackets are $250 and 40% off" And I texted back with "Don't spend more than a $100 including taxes on a jacket!" Seriously, he may wear it only once or maybe twice. He is still growing and Hans is a totally different body type! This has happened before. We got an entire suit for him for his best friend's Bar Mitzvah and he wore it once!

I couldn't wait to see what he picked up and how he spent the money I gave him?! It didn't help that yesterday was Black Friday and there were crowds and he didn't get the assistance he needed.

So, I was the assistance he sought. The boy kept texting me. I had to take 2 breaks as I walked Hans to and from his Art lesson. Eventually, my phone died and I tried to call ASid from the home phone. For a boy who was texting diligently, he didn't pick up the phone.

I worried for a few minutes and left everything else to the boy's decent judgement. When he finally got home, he revealed that he ended up texting my brother who was on a trip to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania! The boy is resourceful and that was a good judgement call!

ASid was proud to also share that the jacket he picked up came in at $102. The boy looked exhausted and went to bed right away. He did have a full day of school and he took the TTC to Eaton Centre and back. However, he did manage to get all the items on his shopping list. Not so bad for a first time purposeful shopper!

I have to share here that the boy remained within budget and actually had some money left over. Guess what he did with that?! He did the typical 16 year old thing and used it to buy a Bluetooth keyboard for his phone!!

As one bard wrote a long time ago, All's well that ends well.