Spam and Shopping With Guys

That silly Rodrigo. He always forgets that I can barely burp in Portuguese yet he persists in leaving comments on this blog in his native language. I thought it might be Spanish or Italian and ran his post through Babelfish and came up with gibberish. Then my brilliant 15 yo son commented that Portuguese is kind of in between Spanish and Italian and I should try translating to that. By golly if a nice, clear English paragraph wasn't rendered! From this I took away two things. Rodrigo, thanks, I don't need a personalized t-shirt. And my son was actually paying attention in Spanish class at some point this last school year for at least a few minutes! The season of miracles is upon us!! So I thought I'd take him shopping. Not as a reward for his brilliance but only because he needs shoes. I have an ulterior motive here. His current shoes will get all nasty and green from mowing the lawn this summer so he really needs another pair for wearing out in public. I believe it is part of my duty as a mother to make sure my sons can tolerate a reasonable amount of shopping. He would probably rather remain at home today but I need his feet there to try on the shoes and there seems to be no reasonable way around that one. At some point in life he will likely get involved with a female human and she deserves to have a properly trained guy in all aspects of living. I'm raising my sons to get married (or some equivalent), not adopted. So they need to learn to shop for two reasons. To have a certain comfort level in procuring the stuff they need. And because in our wonderful country shopping is something of a cultural activity that involves bonding, eating lunch and learning patience. Men hunt. Women gather. And so our shopping styles are in direct conflict with each other. My hope is to teach my sons a middle ground of tolerance where shopping is concerned. For me that means no whining, no eye rolling, no weary sighing and above all not asking every five minutes if we're done yet. My hope is that they at the very least be reasonable if not enthusiastic shopping partners. If they can do that, their future girlfriends/wives/significant others will thank me. And if these future girlfriends/wives/significant others are smart, they'll reward my sons by leaving them at home for shopping excursions that guys find particularly painful. Like shoe shopping that doesn't involve their feet.