Taking Brian Shopping.

You think shopping in that gear is tough? Try shopping with Brian sometime.

As I was leaving work yesterday I thought to myself, it has been a long time since I have purchased a video game and we have our money back from the whole National City/PNC fiasco, so today was the day.  Today I would reinvest in my obsession since my senior year in high school.  Today I would finally buy the latest Final Fantasy game.

And since I was going there anyway I might as well take Brian with me.  The kid loves video games and is always bothering mom and dad to take him.  And if you read this blog at all, there should be no reason for explanation as to why they don’t like to take him.

So I called Brian and told him I was on my way and to make sure he has his shit together and to call mom and make sure it was alright.  You have to tell Brian to get his shit together, otherwise you are at the house for 20 minutes waiting for him to put on shoes, socks and get his money and so on.  It is normally quite the ordeal, as I have said before, the kid is slower than a turtle with no legs.

So I get to the house and run through the checklist.

• Does Brian have socks on:  Check.

• Does Brian have shoes on:  Check.

• Does Brian have money:  Check.

• Has Brian called mom and OK’ed everything:  Check.

• Does Brian have anything he wants to trade in:  Silly question he always does, check.

• Does Brian have a jacket:  negative, its nice enough out, he wont need it and getting him to find it and put it on might take another 10 minutes.

On to Gamestop.

We arrive safely, discussing Brian’s options as to what to get M for her birthday.  He got her a necklace for Valentines day, so I suggested a nice bracelet or earings and maybe a tub of her favorite ice cream since he is going to her birthday party on Saturday.  No better way to impress the lady then show up to her party with her favorite ice cream right?  So it was decided.

We walk in the door and Brian immediately heads to the counter to exchange a PS3 game that he didn’t really like or play that much.  Amazingly he got $16 on the trade in, now on to the hard part, figuring out what game to buy next.

Yeah, like this, but instead of bricks, imagine video games.

For me it was easy.  For Brian, nothing is easy.  After getting his store credit he proceeds to walk over to the wall of games, which might as well be the Wall of China the way Brian takes his sweet ass time looking over everything.

After picking out what I wanted I decided to help speed up the process and help Brian pick something out.

Me: Brian, what are you looking for?

Brian: A racing game.

Me: Brian, isn’t that what you just returned?

Brian: Yeah, I want a different one.

Me: What about this one?

Brian: Own it.

Me: This one?

Brian: Played it.

Me: This one?

Brian: Own it.

This seriously went on until we had exhausted every single racing game that they had in the store.  That is until I found the off-road racing games, so I asked Brian about those games.  Nope, he doesn’t like off-road racing, just street racing.  Of course.  This kid is more picky about games than I am about food.

So I tell Brian that there is literally no racing game made for the PS3 that he either hasnt played or doesn’t already own.  So I asked him what other kind of game he would like.  He said baseball or basketball.

So I start to scour the great wall-o-games again.  I start to see several baseball and basketball games he might like, but when I turn around, to my surprise, Brian has a game in hand.  Wrestling.

Ahhhh, the joys of shopping with Brian, he tells you one thing and picks out another.  So I ask him if he is sure about this game.  BIG MISTAKE.  He was sure, but since my dumb ass just HAD to say something, now he wasnt so sure, so we get to start the scanning process all over again.

Luckily he narrows it down to two games.  Wrestling and basketball.  As he is looking over the basketball game I notice how cheap it is.  Clearly a newer version of this game would be coming out soon, if it wasn’t already.  I told Brian to wait because a newer version of this game should be coming out soon.

He told me he already knew that.  Why did he already know that you ask?  Because he already owns the newer version.  Of course he did.  Dammit Brian why the hell would you wants last years game, when you already have THIS years game??!!  He does this with NASCAR games all the time.  He will trade games in to get older versions of the game.  Baffles me.

Thankfully I got through to him and he settled on the Wrestling game, all in under an hour, which for Brian is nothing short of a miracle.  So we make our way up to the counter when Brian pulls out a wad of cash that looked like it had gone through the washing machine.

Me: Brian, don’t you have a wallet?

Brian: Nope.

Me: That’s it, your 19, you need a wallet.  We are taking you over to Target to get you a wallet after this.

Brian: OK.

So we take our games to the car and walk over to Target.  Yes I am 31 years old and the first thing I do when I go into Target is go to the toys section.  I always browse through the Legos and Star Wars stuff, just to see what there is, I normally don’t get anything.

It was at this time that Brian mentioned that he was going to see Tony Stewart on Thursday and he wanted to take something to get signed, but mom wouldn’t get him this car that he wanted.  I was curious, so I asked to see it.  Shit no wonder, the car he wanted was like $25 bucks.  That’s nothing to sneeze at.  But I was able to compromise, I found a little car that had a scale model of the hood of the car that came with it and it was only $5.00.  I told Brian I would get that for him and as an added bonus it might make John jealous, I LOVE when I can do that!

Now on to the wallet.  WE finally get to the section that has wallets and there are of course four options, not good for a kid that takes upwards of an hour to pick out one video game.  Luckily your story-teller learns a lesson, I picked out the cheapest little bastard I could find and said this IS what you are getting.

Surprisingly there was no argument from Brain, so we made our way up to the counter.  While waiting in line Brian decides he needs some gum.

Me: Brian, why to you need gum?

Brian: I like to have some when I am hanging out with M.

Brian makes Brett favre look like a decision making machine.

I’ll be honest, that is some damn good logic, I can’t really argue with that at all.  Alright, gum it is.  But wait, that means more decisions, shit.

Me: Do you like fruity gum?

Brain: Nah, not really.

Me: Do you like mint?

Brian: yeah.

Awesome, I grab the cheapest mint gum I can find and tell him that’s his winner.  Again, no argument, sweet, I’m almost in the clear here.

As we are walking out the store he thanked me, which was nice, but then he followed up with these little numbers.

1. He informs me that he doesn’t have a wallet because he lost his last one and Carol didn’t want to waste the money to get him another one he would probably lose.  Awesome work Brian, you got me to spend money on you and set me up to get yelled at by Carol.
2. He informs me that he asked Carol if he could get some gum like two days ago and Carol said no because she had just bought a lot of gum.  Brian’s excuse was he didn’t know where that was.  I asked him if he asked Carol where it was and you guessed it, he said no, followed by, “how should I know.”  I HATE when he acts like the victim when he knows damn well that it was his own fault.

Well Brian, I hope that this was a great trip for you because Carol will NEVER let this happen again.  Hell, I was only with him for a couple hours and I managed to get him three things that Carol had specifically said no to him like two days prior.

I would rate my parental preparedness at about a 3 out of 10.  Not good.

Still waiting for Carol to call and ask what the hell I was thinking.  Luckily I already have the insanity defense well mapped out.