I just had this inkling, you know? So I threw the Nut into his stroller and we went to the record store. (How quaint that I still call it a "record store" when they sell tapes, CDs, and DVDs.) My HipQ has sunk way below average, I am surely the Forrest Gump of hipsters, but as Forrest Gump I was able to follow my good shopping karma to used copies of The Strokes and The White Stripes. (Okay, so, I'm, like, two years behind everybody else. So? Don't look at me like that. DON'T LOOK AT ME.) The girl at the counter was even impressed by my snagging used copies of those two CDs, and as we all know, impressing the person who rings you up at the record store is the average person's equivalent of winning a MacArthur genius grant. Then it was on to the Gap because I needed shorts. I am sorry, Jack, but I cannot wear skintight black lycra all summer, especially because skintight black lycra gives you no place to put your keys. So I was standing in line with my end-of-season sale five-pocket shorts (I guess I have LOTS of keys), when some couple with a stroller piled high with their own Gap end-of-season sale orgy of khaki goods cut in front of me! I yelled, "EXCUSE ME, I WAS WAITING HERE!" Everyone else on line heard me, and then we all stared at the line busters, but they were too enraptured with their expanded wardrobe (and was there a baby suffocating under all that prewashed cotton?) to notice. Ah, but my shopping karma was just kicking into gear! I ended up getting this very sweet cashier who took one look at Jackson's New York Yankees cap and said, "Ah, my people." Turns out he's a kid from NYC spending the summer in California visiting family, and he took a job at the Gap to make a little beer money. He was so happy to see a Citibank card (another reminder of New York) come out of my wallet that he gave me a 30% "friends and family" discount. Nice! While the Nut happily dismantled a display of lotion and perfume behind me, and all the wandering Gap employees looking for things to fold came to watch and smile. Oh, we're a big hit wherever we go, especially because we clean up after ourselves (especially in restaurants).

[link via being daddy]