The GREAT North Face - A True Story of Parenting

In this series of articles, I will be pondering the great mysteries of my life. Some of them may strike a familiar chord with mothers and wives like you. But if not, maybe they will trigger for you other ones that puzzle and perplex you. Please share them with me and my four faithful readers – my dear friend Barb who loves everything I write, my sisters Peggy and Michelle who laugh at all my adventures, and my loving husband Matt who reads everything I write with a red pen in his hand.

Today’s mystery involves the great North Face----jacket. My daughter has begged me almost every year since she could say those two magical words to buy her a North Face jacket. And although she is fifteen now, by the age of seven she was fairly adept at spotting my Kohl’s or JC Penney substitutes. In the past, a North Face jacket would have been at least a quarter of my Kelly Christmas budget and, with a list that is three pages long (front and back), it was simply out of the question. But this past Christmas was different. My husband is in Afghanistan for a year, so partly out of fear that my dear daughter would feel deprived for not having her father around during the holidays and partly because of the windfall of hazard pay, I relented. For the very first time, I was ready to scale the North Face.

Now by the time I got on the North Face wagon, color selection was severely limited for the “furry” fleece jacket my daughter so desperately wanted. I ruled out the bright white version because my daughter leaves all clothes she has already worn on the floor and I knew that white would soon become an unappealing gray. I was left with only two colors: that mauve shade I only see on the faux vests of silver haired senior ladies or bright purple usually worn by children under the age of 6. So, I had the bright purple boxed up.

After purchasing this jacket, I decided to go to another store just to look and see if they had other options. Big mistake. Big.

I found an EMS (Eastern Mountain Sports) furry fleece jacket ON SALE in a pretty red raspberry color that looked almost identical to the more expensive North Face jacket. I bought it, of course. And, I also bought a heavier fleece jacket from Nike that was on CLEARANCE. I left very proud of myself. I had just bought two high quality jackets for the price of one North Face fleece coat.

On Christmas morning, I offered Kelly the options of the two counterfeit jackets or the bright purple authentic one. I was so proud of my daughter when she quickly dismissed the prestige and allure of the North Face jacket for the more attractive and reasonably priced outerwear. She quickly donned the raspberry jacket and wore it all Christmas morning. This was a good sign, I thought.

One month later however, we are experiencing the coldest winter I can remember and my lovely daughter wears an old ratty jacket she bought at Target for twenty five dollars or none at all. She never wears gloves or a hat and she never buttons her jacket. Yet I have found the dog sleeping curled up on the lush furry red raspberry jacket and I’ve seen her friend Kristin wearing the Nike one. Why is that? Is it because I never really fully committed to scaling the North Face?

And why don’t North Face jackets ever go on sale? At my very core, I am a SALE-loving, bargain-shopping, loyal Kohl’s customer. I am not ashamed to shop at Wal-Mart and I consider Target upscale. Everything is always on-sale in my world. I rarely buy things full price; diet Coke and dental floss are the only exceptions that come to mind. Can’t North Face throw mothers like me a bone and take $5 off?

And why, if my daughter leaves the house without a coat at 8:30 AM to walk to school, does she claim that it is too cold at 4:30 PM to walk the dog?

And why, after I bought that North Face jacket, did I keep shopping?

These are the mysteries that haunt me. Please tell me yours.

Mysteries for another day:

Why does my college age son

whose apartment can best be described as a Petri dish,

want a Dyson vacuum?