I recently visited with my eldest daughter, Lisa, and her two gifts to me, my grandson and granddaughter, and we had adventures of joy and discovery in New Jersey and Delaware, but not before Lisa “old-shamed” me in Target.
Lisa will often call me and announce, “Old People Check-in! Where have you been? What are you doing?” She does this when I have run afoul of the “Rule of Approved Check-in,” a rule written only on her heart, the manual to which I have never mastered. Sometimes, I will hear these words: “Silver Alert.” This means that I have not checked in with her for an unacceptable period of time. I would lose any argument that tried to make a case for the importance of a real “Silver Alert” and that her humorous declarations might be a perversion of the important “alert” process. So I suffer in prideful silence, for I have crafted this cruel child. But she has inherited from me a love of music, a beautiful singing voice and an anti-shopping gene, except when it comes to one retail operation: Target.
“So, why are we here, exactly? Because it’s Target?” A women overheard me say this and turned to grin at me; I smiled back, and told her not to laugh at us. It was, after all, Target. Father and daughter were in an aisle, assessing the directions we needed to go to achieve a vague vacation-necessities buying agenda. Lisa’s mother — my first bride — had organized a gathering of family in Ocean View, Delaware, an event to which I had also been invited. Target was going to be the place where Lisa was to buy — whatever; it mattered not, because I was up for that “whatever.” Lisa has sarcastically called me a “wanderer” when in Target, and in the past has tasked my grandchildren with the responsibility of “keeping track of Cool Papa.” She refuses to accept that our Target needs are divergent: she is looking for summer clothing that will fit her fast-growing children, and I am looking for anything else. When she is in the children’s clothing areas, I wander off to the books and music, electronics and housewares sections.
On this shaming day, I gave up on expressing — and having rejected — my opinion about the coordination of leggings and tanks for her 7-year-old daughter, and wandered off to find a new watchband and buy batteries for my camera’s attachable flash. I found the batteries, but in the watch department, I discovered that there were no replacements available, and I looked around to find my wandering daughter. A Target associate, appropriately draped in the standard-issue red vest, asked if she could help me. “I’m looking for my daughter,” I told her, shortly before I heard, “Silver Alert!” I turned, and another associate said to me, “I think that’s her,” while a third associate snuffled into her hand.
Lisa claims that I had been “corralled” by three Target associates, who recognized that I was feeble and lost, and who had held me until she was able to find me. As we bickered away from the three young ladies, Lisa led me into aisles containing feminine products; I left her there, and went to look at something else. Another Target associate, as she should have, asked if she could help me. “No thanks,” I said. “I’m just looking.” Then I added, “I’m avoiding my daughter; she is irritating me.” She smiled, and asked, “Is it because of that “Silver Alert’?”
Laughter overlaid my anguish and anger as I watched the red vest disappear down an interesting-looking aisle . . .