Disclaimer: I have permission from my daughter to write and post pictures of her in this post.

Usually by April and May, the last place I want to go is a mall. Why?

Because after a long winter, the sunshine-filled days beckon to be outside. There’s gardening to do, patio decks to sweep, beagle holes to fill, beagles to reprimand to not dig new holes, the grill to clean and vitamin D to soak up.

But alas, spring seems to have by-passed us here in the NE corner of the continent. 🇨🇦 😢 🇺🇲

So, when the girl child told me she needed some clothes to replace outgrown stuff, I arranged a trip to the mall with her.

My teen was actually at an end-of-season sports banquet, the first one in two years, over lunch. I drove in from my mom’s place to pick her up at 2 pm, but of course I had an adventure along the way. To simply drive from A to B like a normal person doesn’t happen in my dimension. 😄

First of all, I had two packages with me which needed to be mailed. My mom told me the post office near her house was open at 11 on Sunday, but there is a lady in that branch I don’t like dealing with so I decided to drop by another location on the way to the banquet hall.

It was closed. I checked my phone and it wouldn’t load the hours, so I picked another location further down Lake Share Blvd and drove by the prominently placed closed sign on that door, too.

Fine, I though. There’s a mall up the road with a drug store in it, maybe they have an outlet thingy there.

I drove up there, parked, googled and…

No post office. 🤷‍♀️

The time on my device indicated it was too early to head to the banquet hall, so I made the executive decision that I deserved a sushi lunch. 🍣 😍

But first, the internal debate about the mask-no-mask situation. I scanned the parking lot and witnessed many people entering and exiting the main mall doors with masks on.

So I put my own mask on and wandered into the mall.

Upstairs in the food court area, where they now eliminated the security protocol to check vax passports, I picked a Bento box and sat down to enjoy it.

Finally, I left and drove into the suburban wasteland known as Mississauga, found the hall, parked and texted the teen girl I had arrived.

It started to rain. I glanced around me and thought, spring won’t arrive at all this year. We’ll probably go from using heat and electric blankets to full-blast air conditioning in a matter of a week. Maybe less.

The first thing Sonja said when she climbed into the car was she had to pee. She is definitely my kid. 🙄

I suggested she go back in the hall and she said she just went, she can wait till we get to the mall.

Ok then. 🤷‍♀️

We drove along busy Dundas Street and I noticed my GPS was upside down. I don’t know how to describe it other than the arrow and highlighted road went in the opposite direction of how I was driving so I told my child that something weird must have happened to the satellite feeding my map on my phone.

She glanced up, pressed something in the corner of my screen, and fixed it.

“How did you do that?” I asked her in astonishment.

“Mooom,” she said. There may or may not have been an eyeroll.

Seems I accidentally pressed the compass icon and inadvertently changed the navigational directions. That was annoying but now it was fixed.

I knew there was a reason to have kids… 🤪

As we drove, we passed a Starbucks I had a pleasant memory about and then we arrived at the intersection where I was to turn left. I almost missed merging over.

“Mom, you gotta turn here,” Sonja alerted me. “Why do you have your GPS on if you don’t use it?”

This comment made me realize how deep the generational difference is; I grew up with physical maps and learned to drive around unfamiliar territory by using landmarks. My landmark at this intersection, which incidentally reminded me of a happy time when my son was an infant, was gone now.

We got to the mall with the heat blasting in the car because the rain wasn’t just wet, it was also cold. On May 1st. So ridiculous. 😭 🌧️🥶

But shopping was fun!

First stop was the restroom for her. By some miracle, I didn’t have to go so I waited and scanned the crowds. Lots of masked shoppers which tells you just how concerned the collective inhabitants of this province are about another lockdown… #nomorelockdowns

Next stop was bra and undies.

As she tried on undergarments at the La Vie En Rose I oogled the lingerie and reminisced my neglected erotica writing, but now was not the time for that. Instead, my girl and I calculated price points for the best deal, then went to another store to check for pants for her. Before we visited our third and final store, I suggested we get something to drink. There was a fresh juice bar near the food court where she spotted bubble tea on the menu, so I left her in line while I moseyed on to the rest room. Which, incidentally, was gross and disgusting. I guess the pandemic didn’t teach anyone anything about hygiene and cleanliness after all.

By the time we got back to the house and got mauled by Tucker it was time to load the summer tires into my car and drop it off at the mechanics with instructions to also do an oil change and to test drive it to investigate a weird noise coming from the exhaust. Meh.

Next up… Shopping with the teen boy. 🙃

Thank you for reading my post. See you in the comments!