As I may have mentioned in previous blogs we do not have high speed cable internet, instead we are forced to utilize a satellite internet provider.  (we actually sent a rather large check to Spectrum/Charter to get them to bring cable internet to us but there may be some easement issues that keep cable internet from actually materializing).  So, we are unable to stream movies forcing us to rent from either Red Box or Family Video.  One positive about renting movies from Family Video is that my self esteem gets a significant boost when I’m rubbing elbows with Family Video patrons.  On Saturday the kids and I stopped in the Kentwood Family Video to rent some movies.  As I wandered through the video store in search of a watchable movie or two Parker followed me asking me what specific movies were.  “Dad, what’s Jeepers Creepers?”  “Dad what’s Saw?”  “Dad what’s Lake Placid?”  I had heard of Jeepers Creepers and made the mistake of actually seeing Saw in the Theatre, they are both horror movies and it is fairly obvious just by looking at the DVD case they come in.  However, I had never heard of Lake Placid, was it possible it was a romantic comedy starring Kevin James as a fat guy down on his luck when it comes to women but somehow managing to snag Jennifer Aniston after she temporarily loses her sight in a freak water skiing accident?  I’m in!  No such luck, the cover had an alligator with a severed hand in it’s mouth, and the hand wasn’t holding a hot dog so there’s no way it involved Kevin James.  Was I raising a serial killer?  When Jeffrey Dahmer’s parents took him to Blockbuster is this what he did?

Fortunately Parker picked out Strange Brew as the movie he wanted to watch and not The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, if he dismembers Oscar I will renew my concern about him being a future serial killer, but until that happens he’s free to wander Family Video inquisitively seeking out the darkest movies Hollywood can produce.  We also rented the third Indiana Jones and a Kevin James movie where he becomes an MMA fighter to raise money for the music program he teaches at and to get in Selma Hyack’s pants, he was a success in each endeavor.

We ended up watching Strange Brew last night and I had forgotten how awful that movie is primarily because I was in sixth grade when I saw it and probably didn’t realize how awful it was at the time I originally watched it.  However, it was awful in an entirely harmless way and Aiden kept asking through the entire movie if Doug and Bob McKenzie were drunk, my response was no they are just Canadian, that’s how Canadians are all the time, alcohol consumption has little to do with their behavior.

We were suppose to go pick out basketball shoes for Aiden last night but I didn’t get home in time and we decided to go tonight.  Originally we were going to hit Tanger to pick up his new shoes but I called an audible and we went to Woodland Mall, home of the Cheesecake Factory and VanMaur.  We went in to the mall through the Van Maur entrance and my Dutch alarm went off immediately “you have no place being in here, its way too expensive, turn back and go to Nordstrom Rack, don’t even look at any price tags it will make you vomit!”  I hustled through the store with Parker and Aiden lagging behind trying to avoid any eye contact with a sales associate.  Once we made it out into the actual mall I breathed a sigh of relief and headed towards Kid’s footlocker, even thought they have kids shoes in Footlocker I decided to opt for Kid’s footlocker.  Bingo, I saw a pair of Air Jordan’s even I would wear if they came in adult sizes at that price ($60) unfortunately that price was for kids up to size 3, Aiden is a 4.  I would have tried to squeeze him into a 3 but he has really wide feet and Nike’s are notoriously narrow.  The exact same shoe in his size was $100.  I pulled a VanMaur and got out of there as fast as I could.

JC Penney would have to do the only problem was that the kid’s department is on the second floor and there was an escalator between us and the kids section.  Basically I had to shove Aiden on to the escalator due to the fact that he was as terrified of it as I was of Saw when I viewed it in the theatre (I hate scary movies).  Parker was a bit more adventurous but it took him some coaxing to get on it as well.  Fortunately for me Aiden is nothing like me and he settled for some pretty unremarkable Nike’s that were on sale for $45 ($45 more than my parents ever spent on basketball shoes for me).  It was more of the same trying to get them to go down the escalator but eventually we made it to the ground floor and out of the JC Penney.

I had been meaning to stop at Barnes and Noble so I could take a look at the Farmer’s Almanac.  I always like to check it for the winter forecast.  It seems the almanac is typically spot on when it comes to predicting what type of winter weather we will encounter.  Last year it predicted a dry and mild December and beginning to January, which was spot on and it predicted an unbearable winter from there on which was also spot on.  I managed to talk my kids into going to Barnes and Noble against their strong objection and found out that this winter is suppose to be mild and wet.  Once again the escalator stood between the kids and the kids section but they managed to make it up a lot quicker this time.  The kids talked me into buying them each a book and as I checked out the clerk asked me if I was part of the Barnes and Noble rewards program, the way I answered his question kept him from asking me if I wanted to join.  He then asked me for my email, my response was “no”.  I made the mistake of giving Banana Republic my email as well as Dick’s Sporting Goods and I have 12,000 unread email in my inbox and at least 60 of them are from those two retailers.

As we were wandering in Barnes and Noble I spotted a familiar face, it was none other than Justin Amash.  I even recognized his wife because they sent my office a Christmas card for some strange reason.  Pretty sure no one in my office knowingly voted for him and I am certain no one likes him.  I was quite surprised to see no security detail protecting him or people trying to approach him and speak to him.  The lack of a security detail made no sense since he is likely to be our next president but the lack of interest from anyone at the mall is entirely understandable since he recently defected from the Republican Party, he could wear a T-shirt that read Jon Calvin is full of shit and he would have been more well received.  It got even weirder when we were on our way out of the mall and he and his family was suddenly behind us, do I say something, has God put him behind me for a reason?  Well, just like when I saw Suzanne Gehaw at Meijer and Terri Deboer at the Byron Center library, I chickened out and didn’t say a word.

As we made our way back through VanMaur I decided I would browse a bit.  There were a pair of red Vans in the shoe department identical to the ones I ordered on line from Kohl’s a week prior, I took a peek and discovered much to my surprise they were the same price at VanMaur.  I thought to myself, how do they afford to pay the piano player if they are charging the same price as Kohl’s?  Then I looked at a price tag of some apparel in the men’s department and just as I got the cold sweats a sales associate approached me to see if I was in need of any assistance.  “Run kids! Run!”  We never looked back.