A Blonde and a Redhead Went Shopping ...

It's been a long time since Katie and I have enjoyed an "incident" together, one of those moments when our antics become a LaVerne and Shirley wannabe episode. Part of that, unfortunately, is because we don't have many opportunities these days to do things together. Katie is growing into her own life, complete with play practices, Madrigals rehearsals, and the various social activities that high school seniors involve themselves in. And I now have Henry, an actual live-in date who is nearly always available for my own social needs.

And yet spring break found Katie and me doing one of our favorite mother/daughter activities: shopping together on State Street in Chicago. Guys and girls split up--with guys spending the day at the Museum of Science and Industry, exercising their brains, and girls shopping downtown, exercising their fashion skills. The car safely parked at the museum, Katie and I hopped CTA bus #10 in front of the museum and comfortably rode to the shopping area.

We had some early success and hit some of our favorites: H&M and Forever 21 for Katie and Nordstrom Rack, where I found the most amazing collection of size 5 shoes ever--something that is a rare find here in the home of larger feet, Grand Rapids. I dug through the Nordstrom rejects on one side of the rack while Katie checked out the other side until I uttered what Katie calls the "cute shoe gasp." There were the cutest pair of navy shoes that I could have ever hoped to own, the perfect accessory for the outfit I bought last spring.

And so the shopping went on. Katie made more purchases than I did and had more bags. Eventually, I had two--my shoes and a cute top I found at another shop. I stuffed the shoes into the shirt bag so that I was carrying only one. The afternoon wore on, and I became concerned about finding out where and what time we should catch the #10 bus back to the museum so that we could meet the guys at the designated time.

As we left the last shop, I remember placing my bag on the counter while I buttoned up my coat. We walked out, and I told Katie that at this point we needed to form our bus strategy. We approached a bus stop with a large map tracing the different routes. I really couldn't figure out what I needed to know from the map, but we were right in front of the State Street Macy's, and I remembered that Macy's had a tourist department and wondered if they might have some bus information.

Sure enough--the Macy's directory told us that the seventh floor had a tourist information department. And even better, there was an express elevator that would take us right to the seventh floor. We got on and pressed 7. Somewhere between that first floor and seven, I realized that I no longer had my bag. All I could think was that maybe I had left it in the last store when I had buttoned up my coat. Katie didn't think so. She thought it was more likely I set it down when I was looking at the map at the bus stop, in which case, I knew that the adorable blue shoes would now be dead to me.

As soon as we got to the seventh floor, the doors opened, and another guy got on and looked at us as though we were strange for not getting off. Apparently he had never thought he left a shopping bag with cute blue shoes somewhere. We immediately rode down, ran through the first floor, and started rushing off down the sidewalk toward the bus stop and the last store. I really had lost all hope at this point.

We were nearly at the store when Katie said, "Mom, look!" Breathless I turned to find . . . Katie holding my bag along with hers. To this day neither of us remember when I handed her my bag. But the blue shoes did look adorable with the outfit, which I fear may have met its demise, yet another tragic fashion story as of Easter Monday. Another time . . .

The good news: We did catch bus #10, made it back to the museum with time to spare, where we collected our men and then had pizza at Giordano's. All's well that ends well.