Throwback Thursday: Tell us about a shopping memory #TBT

[#1]

It's Thursday!

I grew up on a street that had a small grocery store. My house was at the bottom of the hill and the grocery store at the top. Not so fun going to the store but sure better going home :) This is way back in the day when folks would get credit at the store. In Icelandic, my mom would say "láttu skrifa hjá okkur" (ask them to put it on our tab). So she would send me off to purchase 3-5 items and ask them to put it on our tab :)

Soooo, tell us about a shopping memory you have.

Let’s make it a great Thursday! KGM

[Stephen_Lugton]

When my daughter was 2 or 3 we took her with my parents to an ice cream parlour in the local high street, that's not where the shopping story happened, but afterwards we walked back through the shopping centre.

Being somewhere new and fun, my daughter was really excited so we had to go into every shop as we went past, especially those with shiny things she could see and pick up.

Apart from her excitement my main memory of this experience was her holding something she liked then getting excited as she saw another shop and running off with her 'shiny', followed by my dad going back into the last shop to pay for whatever she had innocently shoplifted.

[Humashankar VJ]

One summer, my grandmother took me to a local farmer's market. I must have been around 8 years old. We walked hand in hand, admiring the vibrant fruits and vegetables on display. She let me pick out a few goodies, including a juicy peach and a bag of fresh cookies. As we sat on a bench enjoying our treats, she told me stories about her own childhood shopping adventures. The warmth of the sun, the sweet flavors, and her loving presence all combined to create a memory I treasure to this day.

Thanks @Kristján Geir Mathiesen for getting this topic out here.

[Andy Gladstone]

@Kristján Geir Mathiesen another great prompt!

My memory was being dragged to the department store for clothing shopping. Most of the time it involved shopping for school clothes for my two brothers and me, and it usually included a visit by our Mom to the women's department. While we didn't particularly enjoy having to shop for our own clothing, waiting for our Mom was always a lowlight.

So we used to entertain ourselves by hiding inside the circular clothing racks! Sometimes it was hide and go seek, and one of us would have to search for the two hidden brothers. Other times it was to lay still until an unsuspecting shopper came by and started rifling through the rack. That was decision time - do I just make noises from inside the rack, reach out and grab their ankles or jump up and yell 'BOO'. No matter what the choice was, it was fun for us AND NOT FUN FOR THE OTHER SHOPPERS OR OUR MOM!

Eventually we either outgrew this shenanigan or our Mom stopped taking us, but the memory fades around the time I turned 10. 

[Dan Breyen]

When we visited my Grandmother's apartment, us kids would walk through an open lot to go to the local grocery store by ourselves to get a treat.  Now you wouldn't think this was a big deal, but for this country kid who had to get a ride everywhere out in the country, walking around town was pretty cool.

[Tuncay Senturk]

Your story brought back so many memories! I was the youngest member of the family, so I was the errand boy. I remember going to the local market, list in hand, feeling important because I was trusted to pick the right things. But later, I became lazy and when I was asked to go to the store, I was like "Ohh, not me again, ask my elder brother or sister, why not them and me every time?"

We didn't have a tab, but the shopkeeper knew us so well that sometimes, if I was short a few coins, he'd just wink and say, 'We'll settle it next time.' It's funny how such simple tasks back then felt like big adventures.

[Barbara Szczesniak]

When we went to visit my grandmother, who owned a bar, some of the regular patrons might give each of us a dime or (gasp) a quarter. We promptly took these gifts 2 doors down to the candy store, where you might get a little bag with multiple candies (swedish fish, maryjanes, tangy taffy, pixie sticks).

This was very exciting, since my mom did not feel the need to go with us (we may have been aged 3-9, but were only going 2 buildings away), so we got to select whatever we wanted regardless of how bad it might be for our teeth. 🍬🍭

[Laurie Sciutti]

LOL.  @Andy Gladstone ~ my sister and I did the exact same thing (hiding in the circular racks)!  I mean ~ we had to entertain ourselves SOMEHOW!

[Jonathan Appel]

Did you ever put something on the tab that you shouldn't have @Kristján Geir Mathiesen?

[Laurie Sciutti]

HAHAHA @Jonathan Appel !!  I personally never did that 😇 but my boyfriend and his siblings have quite a few stories of getting a little "extra" when they were sent to the store by their parents.  Booze seemed to be the frontrunner.  

[John Funk]

No sure that I would call it a "shopping" experience, but I still have memories as a youngster of going to a couple of 5 and Dime stores as they were called back then in my small home town. Variety Fair was the name of one and Lay's 5 and 10 store was the other. 

Variety Fair had a back room that was kind of dark and had wooden creaky floors and a unique smell of old-time-y-ness. (How's that for a word?  :-) ) But that's where the toys and games were. I would spend lots of time back there just browsing (and wishing to a certain extent).

Thanks @Kristján Geir Mathiesen  for stirring up that memory.  :-)

[Sam Nadarajan]

Growing up we only ate rice and curries every day (sometimes every meal, my dad would cook a huge pot of it on Sunday and we'd find a way to make it last till the end of the week - at least until I hit puberty). It sounds glamorous now, but every day it got so boring.

On Sundays we would go to Costco (wholesale club primarily in the States and in a few other countries to buy items in bulk at cheap prices) for our shopping trip in the early afternoon. We always went at this time because it was prime sample time, and at our Costco we were blessed to sometimes have samples at both ends of an aisle. This meant that we got a nice snack on those Sundays - but the best part was that we could try all of these other foods that were like culinary gold to us (ravioli, tortellini, fancy dips, mozzarella sticks, anything that wasn't rice).

Even though I'm an adult now, the habit is so engrained in me and I've got my 3 year old excited about samples as well. So the memory still lives!

[Sam Nadarajan]

@Andy Gladstone and @Laurie Sciutti I am definitely there with you as far as going into those circular racks! 

[Kristján Geir Mathiesen]

So many great memories! Thanks for sharing them, good people.

Well, @Jonathan Appel that is a very good question. I was a candy kid so I might have put some candy on the tab but I don't really remember - not for sure.

Have a great weekend, everyone! KGM

[Trudy Claspill]

There was a tiny "corner store", not even as big as a current day "convenience" store. I think they had two gondolas about 6 feet long for merchandise, plus shelves around the walls. They had a deli meat slicer, a cheese wheel under a dome, and actual penny candies. The owners, Bob and Jo, were like family and knew everybody's name.

They had two monkey puzzle trees out front that were HUGE.

We would walk or ride our bikes there and spend 30 minutes deciding which penny candies to buy with our nickels and dimes.

We could buy a 16 ounce bottle of soda for 25 cents. Back then, RC Cola used to mark the underside of some bottle caps with "25 cents", and if you got one of those you could turn it in to the store for, you guessed it, 25 cents! That was a pretty big deal considering how much candy we could get for 25 cents back then.

[John Funk]

That’s fantastic @Trudy Claspill - I remember these types of stories, also. 

[Teodora V _Fun Inc_]

That's not strictly associated with a real shop, but when I was little, I used to spend my summers in our village house with my grandma. A few times per week, we had a deal with a local cow owner to get fresh raw milk (my grandma was convinced the kids should drink a glass of milk before bed, which eventually turned into one of my biggest nightmares), and it was my responsibility to pick it up. 

The catch was that the pick-up should be between 5 and 6 AM before the cows go for their daily walks in the fields. I have always been an early bird, so I enjoyed walking through the village early in the morning and listening to the silence (and the real early birds). 

[Ram Kumar Aravindakshan _Adaptavist_]

The one thing I remember about shopping when I was a kid was I and my brother would be fighting for who gets to push the trolly. 

[ABR]

@Kristján Geir Mathiesen this topic reminded me of two personally significant memories!

The first one happened when I was about 8-9 years old. In India with its natural propensity to reuse and recycle, it is common to find packets made from old newspaper. My ever-busy mom used to sent me on errands to the local grocery shop almost everyday. This particular day she asked me to get some sugar and of course like a dutiful daughter, I went and got it. But, the incident happened on the walk back, because the voracious reader in me discovered an "interesting piece of news" on the sugar packet and in my engrossed state upturned the packet in my enthusiasm for getting to the last bit of news! I returned home with only half the quantity of sugar I was supposed to bring! As was her wont, my mother just turned very serious as I tearfully explained how sorry was for the entire thing. She just asked me what I had learnt from the incident and once satisfied that I had really learnt my lesson, she left it at that. But the funny bit happened when I won the weekly general knowledge quiz at school by using the interesting news I had read on the sugar packet! Well, as they say, no knowledge ever goes to waste! :)

The second memory is of my daughter when she was 4 years old. We had gone to a very popular gift cum book and art store looking for a gift for a friend of my daughter. As the salesperson tried to help me choose a gift, my little one strolled around on her own. Presently, she came back with  a small toy and innocently asked me, "Mom, can I have this? Is it within your budget" The store salesperson almost had a heart-attack hearing the question as he was more accustomed to seeing little ones throwing terrible tantrums to force their parents satisfy their exorbitant demands! Actually, at that point even I was also surprised to hear her use the word "budget" so aptly! Apparently she had heard the adults using the word in family discussions and understood that it must be related to buying things! Children and their sharp perceptions! Well, of course I couldn't refuse her after that!

Thanks again for allowing me to share these memories! :)