Lust for Life

Oh my gosh. If you don’t have a teenager in your life, you need to go get one. Let me tell you what fun you are missing out on. They are full of creativity, originality and list for life. I love ‘em, especially mine.

My two oldest moved out this summer. They are working at a Trinity Pines Christian Camp as staffers. Christa had a few days off, so I brought her home. She kept asking, “What are we going to do Monday?”

I’m thinking . . . work on speeches, writing, and marketing, but Nooo . . .

“What are we going to do? I want to go to the mall and look around, watch people. Doesn’t that sound fun?”

I ignored the questions or gave them a cursory, “Uhmhm.”

Monday morning.

“I know. Let’s go to the mall and in every store pick an item and create an outfit to match it from head to toe, accessories and all. We hide our items from each other ‘til we get to the dressing room. We put it all on, then take pictures. No, wait. For each store, we will have a certain identity to dress-up as. Beach dweller, Italian, Inspector, Parisian, nerd, little girl, etc. And we’ll get the store associates to take our picture. Come on won’t that be fun?”

Her enthusiasm oozed out and began infecting Charissa and I. We succumbed and loaded up in the truck for our great weird “scavenger hunt.” Charissa and I lost heart often during the course of the game, but Christa kept plugging and prodding us on. She was having the time of her life running around the department stores picking up jewelry and $200 handbags from downstairs, going upstairs for tops and bottoms, asking the shoe guy for a special pair in her size, texting us to find the same dressing room for the grand finale of each outfit.

You want me to do what?!?!?

Carrying around all that pricey stuff made me nervous, but Christa said, “What’s the worst they will do? Kick us out for making outfits?” We forged ahead trying not to look suspicious.

Did I mention there was no retrying different sizes? It was hit or miss the first time. Zipped or not the pics were made and the fun was had. And yes, for all the sales assistants reading this, we put all the items back where we got them.

We spent six hours doing this, laughing our heads off. While relaxing our sore feet in Starbucks with drinks and The Great American Cookie Co. treats, we decided the fitting end to the perfect day would be pasta in our pj’s and a good movie. We ordered pasta to go from The Cheesecake Factory, then drove home to watch August Rush.

What fun! I was a reluctant adventurer at first, but the experience and memories were great. I sure didn’t like taking her back to camp to live. Charissa and I suffer the loss of a little something when she’s not around.

Grab a teen and live a little! Blessings, Robin

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