We went shopping at Lakeline Mall in Cedar Park a couple of nights ago with all three kids in tow. We first visited JC Penney so that my wife could pick out some clothes for her mom. Since I was on kid duty, I watched the kids play "hide and seek" in the clothes racks and throughout the department. I remember doing the same thing when I was little, but I didn't have any siblings, so my version basically consisted of me hiding until my mom was in a near panic looking for me, then popping out. Surprise! Why are there police with you, mom?
They had an absolute blast, and although they were being a little loud, I did my best to restrain myself from telling them to keep it down. It's Christmas time! Why should I quell their joy? I figured it was better than whining from boredom. I guess kids will never tire of hiding inside the circular racks of clothes. They aren't that hard to find when they are giggling in there.
Since my wife needed to go to a couple of stores without them seeing her purchases, I took the kids to a toy store that appeared to be temporary for the holiday season. They sold a wide variety of radio controlled vehicles, helicopters, animals, etc. Normally, this is the type of "store" that would be confined to a small kiosk, but I guess they ordered more stuff and decided to inhabit an actual space for a month or two.
We spent about 20-30 minutes there, and the kids had a good time playing. As I was browsing the shelves (which didn't take very long), I found some funny verbiage on the boxes. I couldn't help myself - I knew that I had to get photos with my camera phone for blogging later. It is clear that these toys were produced in a land where English is not the primary language. Take a look (sorry for the blurriness - I didn't want them to question me as to why I was photographing their products so I had to move quickly and furtively):
This is the edge of the box. There are no words to the left of this image. It says, "MORE Funny to play it!" Um...cool? It also said, "High Quality Workmanship". It has been my experience that only toys with inferior workmanship feel the need to put this on the box. In other words, the truly high-quality toys don't need to say that.
I don't know that this needs any particular commentary. I just thought it sounded funny.
Now that I see this one, it actually looks like I was drinking in the mall with my kids. I realize it is exceptionally blurry. Please allow me to explain why this is humorous. It states,
- SPECIAL TOYS COLLECTION
- SUPER CENTURY DESIGN.
- COMPLETELY NEW TO.
- COME IN TO THE MARKET.
What is a "super century" design? Also, the punctuation made me laugh out loud. Are they asking me to come in to the market? I'm already here, right?
I was actually planning on purchasing one of the toys with its "high quality workmanship" for my son even though they didn't ask for anything, but when my wife returned with our toddler, the manager/salesperson/whatever kept taunting the baby with one of the remote control vehicles, and it irritated me, so we simply left and went to GameStop.
If you enjoyed this one, you might want to take a look at some other posts I have written about my children:
My Kids' Greatest Hits - A Collection of All Previous Posts About My Children
Thanks for reading my musings about this fun-filled trip to the mall!
Copyright 2007 Jason Crouch Austin Real Estate Broker
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