Striking Out

Shabbat is ending earlier every week, but alas, not early enough for a shopping expedition to the local mall. Stocking but true, the Beverly Center closes at 8 pm on a Saturday night. I mean, why not roll up the sidewalks as well?

With two of my sons in tow, we parked at the Beverly Center at 7:55 pm, not knowing that all we'd get from the experience is a minuet amount of calorie burning. The oldest son present is a big fan of H&M, and wants (me) to buy a sports coat from there to match the pants we got him about a month ago which shrunk and now fit his entirely too skinning frame perfectly.

But they were closed. We went to American Eagle, which doesn't have sports coats but does have an assortment of, in my opinion, overpriced clothing, which did stay open a little later and the sales people were sweet.

We left the Center and I offered to treat my boys to a latte smatte at the local kosher Coffee Bean, but they were, you guessed it, closed. So onward we moved to Starbucks, which doesn't have kosher latte smattes, but the non-Jewish staff were sweet and very apologetic. No need, guys, we'll live.

Finally, it was time for the kosher pizza store, which was not only open but mobbed. I sent the boys in, and sat in the car to witness the local hasidic version of a biker on his chopper chasing down a group of bicyclists on the sidewalk. How weird is that? With that inspiration, I hopped out of the car and went out to retrieve the boys, only to find about a dozen people in line with the same intent. My older son offered to walk home with his food.

By the time I got back to the car to leave, my son was running after me carrying his pizza slice. So an hour and a half after we began our search for a sports coat, we ended up with a slice of pizza and were back where we started from. Ah, there's no place like home.