jennifer
Back in October, my brother, Jacob, joined us for a road trip to my old stompin' grounds in Warrensburg for the CMSU...er, UCM...Homecoming.  First we watched the parade, which I think all of us enjoyed as much as the baby did.  Then we skipped the football game and headed downtown to see our good friends Bart and Red play.  Little Man really liked the music.

After some shopping at the bookstore (while my brother sat in the car because he hates shopping) and catching up with some old friends, we headed out of town and decided to stop in Higginsville at Kleinschmidt's Western Store.  If you've never been there, you should go just to see it, even if you don't wear cowboy boots or hats or anything western.  They have over 250 animal mounts throughout the store, and everyone needs their picture with 20,000 pairs of boots or thousands of cowboy hats.  (Click the link above to see the pictures on their website if you don't believe me.) 
Mainly we were just looking around.  But once we got inside, Jacob decided he needed a new cowboy hat.  So, we got a very nice saleslady involved and eventually picked out just the right one.  While doing that, Cliff stumbled upon a rack of US made overalls, and bonus (!) they had regular denim and hickory stripe!  (Yeah, like a train engineer...)  So, these two men actually went to the dressing rooms and tried on the overalls!  They were immediately sold and each grabbed a few pairs.  On the way to the dressing room, Jake realized he needed some new western shirts, so while he was trying on overalls, I picked out a few button up shirts for him.  He couldn't decide on a favorite, so he went with all of them. 
After that, we moved to the boots.  At this point, I was worn out, but Jake was still going strong.  I resorted to just letting the munchkin play on the floor.  He was thrilled.  (notice the overalls hanging on the stroller)

 
After browsing for quite some time, we had Jacob's choices narrowed down to these two boots. 

I loved the gray pair on the right, but wasn't sure he would wear them.  After much discussion, we talked him into just buying both pairs.  (At this point, it had become a game for me to see how much I could get him to buy.)  Turns out, he secretly wants to be Tuco Salamanca from Breaking Bad and wears the gray pair a lot! 
After the boot decision, I finally was released from my stylist duties and got to pick out my own pair of boots.  I ended up with a pair of Minnetonka fringe wedge booties.  That's it.  One pair of shoes. 
We approached the checkout counter and when everything was totaled for Jacob, we all literally held our breath as the cashier ran his debit card.  We were positive that the total was over the limit the bank would allow to be debited for one day.  We laughed after the debit card went through, imagining him having to use a credit card and the Kleinschmidt employees thinking he had a real spending problem.
We almost had to hire help to get the purchases to the car.  Instead, we carried the baby and used the stroller for the bags. 
Jacob hasn't been shopping since, but every time I see him he's wearing at least one of the items he bought that day.  So, although it's hard for me to wrap my head around, maybe I could take a lesson in shopping from him.



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