My nephew SM just turned twelve, and at that age, kids have very specific likes and dislikes. I asked my sister, LM, what he wanted for his birthday. She said money always works. I don’t particularly like giving money as a present. It is the gift equivalent of giving a homeless person ten dollars. You would like him to spend it on food or shelter or new clothes, instead of meth or MD20/20. Well, the same goes with gift giving. If you give a teenager some cash, you will be disappointed, most likely, in where that money went. I don’t want to know I gave a child the opportunity to buy a crappy video game or twenty dollars’ worth of Mike and Ikes. But if there is something in particular that the birthday boy or girl wants, well, that I don’t mind getting. After all, I want them to be happy. Just not wasteful.
The difficult part about buying for teenagers is that they have expensive tastes. They want clothes from the overly fragrant Abercrombie and Fitch, or a Flip video, or a new iTouch, or a cell phone, or a video game system. They don’t want a Barbie or a Webkinz, which fall below fifteen dollars. Gone are the days when a couple of new shirts from Old Navy elicit a “Cool, thanks!” Now, it gets a “oh, Old Navy. Where’s the gift receipt?” And as the gifts get more expensive, the list shrinks. They only want one or two things, because they know that there is only so much they can hope to actually receive. Somewhere in the past ten years, they learned being greedy is not an attractive quality. Or maybe when they realized there is no Santa, they also realized that there is no way they will ever get everything they want.
SM doesn’t mind the Old Navy so much, as he is not yet a clothes horse. But he has definite ideas about what he wants for a gift. This year, he had only one suggestion. He wanted the game of Stratego. But not just any old Stratego; he wanted the Fire vs. Ice edition, which involves wizards and dragons. It’s the strategy game of Middle Earth. He played it while he was away at camp, and really enjoyed it, and now he was hankering for his own game for plotting and scheming at home.
My sister kindly emailed me this one item birthday wish list, and it took me a few days to even remember how to pronounce Stratego. At first I thought it was some sort of computer game. That shows you how much I am into strategy, war, or wizards and dragons. I figured whatever the hell it is, I am sure it can be had at Amazon.com. Wrong. I couldn’t find it the usual routes online, and I wasn’t about to do eBay. I didn’t have that kind of time. So I had to shop around old skool.
First, I hit the Target, because at least they have a decent toys and games department. I searched and looked. They had a Twilight version of Clue, and a SpongeBob Operation game. They even had a Simpsons Clue game. They did have a Stratego, but it was a classic wooden boxed edition, not the fire vs. ice one that SM desired. So I left empty-handed. Well, I left without the game. There is no such thing as leaving Target empty-handed.
Next, I tried a couple of other options. Barnes and Noble was also a no-go, which was fine since they mark up their games anyway, to cover the cost of the mood lighting, classical music, and comfy chairs. I followed up the book store with a stop at Toys R Us, which I haven’t been to since I realized I could get everything my children wanted for Christmas online. I went there after a meeting, and I was too scared to leave my laptop in the car, so I had to carry that inside along with my oversized purse. I looked like I was going to be spending a lot of time there instead of dashing in and out empty-handed like I did. But at least I wasn’t mugged by one of those iffy men who linger in the parking lot at the Toys R Us. I can never tell if they are there to kidnap children, rape women, break car windows, or buy the entire stock of Star Wars: The Clone Wars figurines. My guess? All of the above. I didn’t even bother with going to Wal-Mart, since they never have anything I need. Which left me one last option: the game store at the mall.
When you think of a game store at the mall, you are probably thinking of a Game Stop type place, where one can find every new and some used video game, a store where you can’t tell the pimply-faced teenage boy employees from the pimply-faced teenage boy customers. Well, the game store I am talking about is a board game store. It’s hidden in a corner of the mall near Sears, and going in there is like going into 1985. The games all look slightly used and dusty, and every inch of shelf space is crammed full of puzzles, games, and collectibles.
I went to the mall after the gym, about 10:15, and the store was closed. I walked around the mall, checking to see if most of the stores were open, which they were. I am not much of a mall person, even less so when I am wearing stinky wet gym clothes, no make-up, and my matted morning hair up in a ponytail. So I walked around for fifteen minutes, looking at crap I don’t need, before I moseyed back to the store, which now appeared ready for business.
The lone employee was a plain mildly obese woman, dressed all in black, wearing gobs of eyeliner just a few centimeters shy of her actual eyes, so that it looked more like eye underliner. She asked me if I needed help, and I told her I was looking for fire vs. ice Stratego. She took me to the strategy game section, and while we could locate the democrat vs. republican version, the fire vs. ice one eluded us. She looked on the computer and said she had one coming in by the end of the week and wrote down my name and phone number. Before I left, I noticed a small group of teenagers and a grown man lurking in the back of the store, near the display of twelve-sided dice. I was glad to see they were in street clothes and not capes, cloaks, and breeches, although I had no doubt that at least one of them owned a jerkin.
The game did not come in by the end of the week. I got my nephew an iTunes gift card and some clothes instead. It wasn’t exactly what he wanted, but at least he knows I love him enough to go to the mall.
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