The Way To A Momma's Heart

One thing my daughter learned in the Navy is if you are from L.A.designer names means everything. In the land of Red-Necks, Wal-Mart is to us what Gucci is to a Valley Girl. When my daughter arrived in San Diego she was appalled..... appalled I tell you, that there was not a Wal-Mart on every corner....much less a Super Wal-Mart in town. This revelation rocked her little Okie world like the sight of "Happy Hour" rocks a drunken sailor. I will never forget a phone call I received one day.... "Oh Mom!!!! I just found the coolest Wal-Mart ever!!! It's in an outdoor mall and it has.... you're not going to believe this..... But it has an escalator!" She was officially in "Hog Heaven". After several years of being in San Diego she is now more of a Target kinda gal, but she still has a soft spot in her heart for Wal-Mart and I suspect she always will. Her fascination with Wal-Mart (or the lack thereof), intrigued the guy she was dating at the time. He was from New York and he didn't quiet "get" what the Wal-Mart fascination was all about. She tried to explain to him that in small town Oklahoma Wal-Mart was the meeting place of all things important. Everyone you knew was in Wal-Mart at any given time of the day or night. You walk in and the first person you see is your hairdresser, your nail tech (mine is usually on the verge of being handcuffed), you see your minister, your 1st grade teacher, most of your friends, your relatives and certainly all of your enemies (sometimes these are one and the same). When you are bored on a Friday night and there is nothing good on at the movies.... you go to Wal-Mart. If you are lonely and haven't been able to reach your best friend by phone.... you go to Wal-Mart. Absolutely, whoever you are looking for is there, Plus.... and this is a big plus.... You can also buy stuff there! When he came to Oklahoma with her for Christmas, of course one of their first stops was Wal-Mart. Right as you walk in the front door is the hair style salon and the girl that used to do her hair before she joined the Navy ran out to meet her. From there they saw one person after another and pretty much anyone who he needed to be introduced was found in the store making visiting home so much easier cause you can get those first hellos out of the way. With one stop shopping comes one stop hugging.  Another thing about Wal-Mart is you pretty much don't have other options where shopping is concerned. Unless you want to spend the time and money traveling to the City, you just get whatever you need at Wal-Mart. Name brand isn't as big a deal in small town Oklahoma as it may be in larger cities and certainly not like it is in L.A! The guy she is dating now is from L.A. and she was shocked and amazed at his shopping habits. He is a designer guy all the way babe and that is just something she is not used to. Our idea of name brand, is digging out a fake in the far corner of a Ross's store. We're happy as little peas if it's cheap and the name resembles something we've read about in a magazine. The first time he took her shopping she thought he had lost his ever loving mind because he wanted to buy her a Coach purse. That little state of affairs warranted an emergency phone call to me asking me what on earth was wrong with the guy. It just wasn't normal, she might understand it if he was a girl but a guy being hung up on designer names did not compute with her. My advice was to just tell him to give her the cash instead and maybe drop by a discount store on the way home..... Made way more sense to me. A few months later she came home for a visit and he loaned her his brand new designer. I had to see what all the fuss was about cause to me they just looked like sunglasses with some funny name written on the side, so I popped those puppies on my face only to fall madly in love with designer sunglasses. She came downstairs that night to find me desperately searching the Internet for some new shades. "Mom! You're not actually going to spend $300.00 on a pair of sunglasses are you?" Of course I wasn't, I was just.... curious. After all I am the queen of cheap sunglasses with maybe $20.00 being the max I'll shell out for something that will either be sat on, flung off, or just simply misplaced. That being said, I'll have to admit that those $300.00 sunglasses fit better than any $5.00 pair I had ever had. My little mind began to click and I tried to find a way to justify paying that kind of money for sunglasses. When we went to San Diego to visit my daughter he let me wear his shades while we were there and I felt like I was styling and profiling right up to the point when he insisted I give them back. I slunk home with my $5.00 sunglasses and tried to put the past behind me. I had just about succeeded in doing so when a package, addressed to me came in the mail. In the package was my very own, personal pair of designer sunglasses!!! Does that boy know a way to a Momma's heart or what!? The first time I got in the car and put them on I asked the boys "I wonder what D & G stands for?" My son's best friend.... a smart butt at heart blurts out without missing a beat.... "Dollar General!". The little Red-Neck. So far, so good. I haven't sat on them, I haven't flung them, dropped them or lost them. This guy my daughter is dating now, gets a two thumbs up from me. Typically the way to this girls heart is through a new pair of shoes, but now I've added shades to that list so he'll work just fine.