The Blue Store

It’s finally happened my son has gone commercial on us.  He’s the next generation of shopper and slave to products and advertising.  Shorty now identifies certain stores and asks to go there.  Best Buy, his favorite and I’ll explain why in a minute, is the Blue Store.  BJs is the Red Store.  Home Depot is the Orange Store.  Seeing a pattern here?  Yep, every store is associated by a color.

Now as I said Best Buy, or the Blue Store, is his favorite.  Is it the big screen TVs, the computers, or maybe the kids dvd section that make it his favorite?  Nope.  Why does my child love the Blue Store and ask to go there at least once a day?  It’s the washing machines.  He loves washing machines and he knows the Blue Store has lots of them in a rainbow of colors.  What makes it even better is that a few of them actually turn on and spin and light up.  Woooowww!   Oooohhh, Aahhh!

I kid you not.  This is why Shorty is obsessed (OBSESSED, I tell ya!) with the Blue Store.  He knows if we go to the Blue Store he will get to ride in the yellow cart.  Mom or Dad will take turns walking him to each and every washer and dryer and let him press buttons.  He knows that this will be heaven until Mom and Dad says it’s time to leave.  Then sometimes there will be a meltdown because we have to leave the Blue Store and the washing machines.

Occasionally he will allow us to look at the vacuum cleaners.  If we’re really lucky some older kid might be playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band and he’ll happily watch them strum on the guitar or beat on the drums for a minute.  But it only lasts a short time before he requests to go see the washing machines again.

It’s so bad that at least once a day he asks to go to the Blue Store.  When Big and I ask why we need to go to the Blue Store he tells us we need to buy blue washing machines and sometimes he throws in the idea of a new vacuum cleaner too.  He has even gone so far as to tell me that my white, one year old front loader washer and dryer are no good.  We need blue ones.  I suspect that if we were foolish enough to buy blue ones (which we’re not) that the thrill would only last awhile before he’d want to go to the Blue Store to buy more washers and dryers.

Now I suppose one could say this is a monster that Big and I created.  The one household chore I actually don’t mind doing is laundry and I do it all the time.  Shorty has been fascinated with doing laundry since he was a baby.  Now that Best Buy has opened a store close to us Big and I are back to our old habit of going there once a week whether we need to or not.  I guess you could say the Best Buy obsession is genetic.  I can only hope that soon he gets bored with going to the Blue Store and moves on to something else.  In the meantime, you’ll find us in the washer and dryer section at our local Best Buy.