School is back in full swing here in Tampa, and for the most part the aisles upon aisles of supplies at our local stores have disappeared. Around this time each year I always check out the left-overs, it’s a good time to get the pretty designer type folders, and notebooks for great prices.
As I am picking through a bin of notebooks, I hear a conversation from the next aisle over. It was clearly someone talking on their cell, and it sounded like an older woman. I hear the woman say “yes, dear I am at Walmart now …. I know I need to find her some red pens … (another brief pause) oh, yeah and that pink prada nylon messenger bag she wants.” There was another brief pause then the woman said “alright I’ll see you later”. I was pretty sure that was the end of the conversation. I am not an ease dropper, but like I said it sounded like an older woman and she was talking loud. (HA! this is the reason I don’t have conversations on my cell while shopping) I continued picking through the notebooks, and finally found the ones I wanted. As I am about to exit the aisle, I see the left over backpacks and school bags. Smiling and peeking at them, I think to myself “yeah no designer bags here”. Just as I finished that thought, I hear “oh dear I don’t see any pink ones, honey do you know if they have any other bags?” I knew then that it was the woman I had heard a few minutes ago, and said what is the age of the child you’re buying for? She said “it’s for my granddaughter who is almost 15.” I tell her that I didn’t think they had any more bags and it might be good to check out the mall. (hopefully she did, because Walmart doesn’t sell prada yet!) She thanked me for my help and we both went on our merry ways.
I kept thinking about my shopping trip and like always my curiosity got the best of me. I had two questions, one I could probably find easily with Google. “What is the price of a bag like the one the woman’s granddaughter wanted,” and the second one “was this girl high maintenance or just fashionable?” I found the prices, lets just say I could probably buy my son enough school bags to get him through graduation for the price of some of the bags I found. (he’s in 7th grade now) Anyways the 15 yr old has great taste, there were a few bags I’d like to have myself. The cheapest one on my list was about $200, not bad huh?
I have come to the conclusions, that the girl knows fashion and designer products, the girl was taking advantage of her grandmother (probably not the first) and the grandmother clearly didn’t know the designer label on the bag she was sent to buy. (it’s hard to decide which conclusion is a better fit)
What would you do if your daughter/granddaughter asked for a ‘designer bag like prada’ at 15? What is the most amount of $$ have you spent on any of your child(ren)’s school bags? Do you think the girl is high maintenance, fashionable, or just taking advantage of her grandmother?
If any of my kids want things like that, they’ll need to earn the money to pay for it!