Shopping with teenagers

I don't mean to generalize, but shopping with teenagers is a completely different experience depending on the gender. I'm still trying to work out which version I prefer.

Me with the Queenager:

Q: Hold this, ooh and this. (Dumping large pile of clothing onto me.) What else? Ooh this (picks up long floaty dress, suitable only for very expensive trips to a private Caribbean island. Not somewhere we'll be going any time soon.)
Me: When will you wear this?
Q: What? Oh I won't, but I want to try it on. Why don't you try this on. (Holds up another long floaty dress, with no discernable back to it and no hope of wearing a bra underneath.)
Me: Don't be ridiculous. I would look awful in that, and besides I would never wear it.
Q: Just try it on. It's fun.

Fun? Since when is trying on clothes you don't need FUN? If I could do all my clothes shopping (which happens in Leap Years) via the Internet I would, but I have no waist and really long arms, so trying things on is a necessity.

Contrast that with trip for jeans, trousers, anything, for ever-growing teenage son. Henceforth known as Mr. Minimal (in conversation, effort and everything else)

Me: Right, let's go to Old Navy. You need some new pants/trousers.
Mr M: No I don't. I have two pairs of jeans.
Me: That I have to wash all the time to keep you looking decent. Anyway, don't you get sick of wearing the same things? (Which is a bit rich coming from me, I'll admit.)
Mr M: No.

Drag him off to Old Navy, where he walks along behind me and makes no effort to approach the men's stuff, appears ready to die of boredom at any moment and groans loudly every time I so much as look in the direction of things we didn't come in for.

Me: Oh look, these'll be nice, and they're quite dark too so they won't look shabby.
Mr M: I already have a dark pair of jeans.
Me: But if you had another pair you could wear both. (Even I knew that sounded ridiculous, and the eyeball-rolling that followed served me right.)
Me: What about this shirt? This would look good with them.
Mr M: I have three shirts.

Now I am on record as not being a lover of shopping and owning clothes that are older than my kids, but how many teenagers do you know that turn down anything that's free? On the way home however, his strategy became a little clearer:

Mr M: Mom. How much money would you have spent on me if you'd bought me everything you'd planned to?
Me: No, I'm not giving you the money to download I-Tunes instead. Nice try though.

Ha.

(Blogging off till the end of the week as I take care of a friend in great need.)

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