The Shopping Cartoon | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: The Shopping Cartoon | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jacquelyn Horne
03/02/07
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I’m a people watcher. And what better place to watch people than at the shopping mall? At the train station, you only see travelers. At the movie theater, you only see people who go to movies. At the workplace, you only see carbon copies of yourself. But, everybody, just everybody, goes shopping.

Now, I don’t people-watch to poke fun or place judgment. It’s just interesting to me to watch humans and try to decide who they are, where they work, what their station is in life (housewife, mother, male stay-at-home “mom”, high-schooler, writer, photographer). I try to guess the relationship of fellow shoppers (siblings, friends, parent/child adults, nanny and her charge) – you get the picture.

Oh. In case I didn’t mention it, I always say a little prayer for each one that I put into my shopping cartoon. Just a benefit I use to pay those who have so thoroughly entertained me.

It’s truly fun and funny with no way to fail, because no one knows I’m playing the game. If I’m wrong there’s no one to contest it.

Once, while “people shopping”, I watched a woman who was holding the hand of a very unwilling child. She was dragging him along, trying to ignore the stares. The child was screaming, “I don’t want to go with you. I want my DADDY!” I watched as the security guard grabbed the angry women to detain her while he called the police. You guessed it! This was MOMMY! So I said my little prayer this time for the small lad. I could sense that he was going to need it.

Then there was the time I saw a young boy, he couldn’t have been more than two, happily picking up coins from the shallow pool in the mall lobby. A frantic woman was running along the edge of the pool trying to coax the little one to come out of the water. I could tell at once that she was the nanny. A mother, I’m sure, would have been more verbal, climbing into the water to retrieve the child. I prayed for the nanny.

One afternoon, I spotted an elderly woman who was “in tow” with a young teenage lad. Grandmother and grandson. I had them pegged immediately. As I watched them go into the ice cream store, a gentleman sitting beside me spoke.

“Isn’t that nice?” he said. “That young man is taking that woman shopping. He’s part of a church youth group that have designated themselves Surrogate Grandchildren. He brings her here every week.”

I said a prayer of thanks for both of them.

I decided on one particular day to go “group shopping”. So, when I saw this unlikely group of women entering the mall restaurant, I sized them up. “Family,” I thought as I looked at one young woman who was pleasantly (and expensively?) dressed, carrying a designer diaper bag and holding a baby in an attractive crocheted baby shawl; two older women who were neat, but wearing ordinary clothing (to me anyway); a middle-aged woman, although it was early fall, dressed for winter in a heavy coat and galoshes, being escorted by a young woman in camouflage clothes and combat boots. Yes this was no doubt a dysfunctional family.

I sat for awhile, “shopping” for other unsuspecting quarry, without many bargains. Then the dysfunctional family came back into the mall lobby, again drawing my attention. I watched as hugs were shared, tears flowed and warm goodbyes were said. Could I have been wrong?

I prayed that God would be with each of them, and that if this were a dysfunctional family, please give me one like it.

After they left, I looked around and saw a young man in the food court area intently watching me. I smiled as I realized that I was not the only one who came to the mall to people-shop. I only hoped he was praying for me.

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