The weather website Saturday afternoon said the local temperature was 32.9 degrees. The drizzle and the wind made it feel colder, and it didn’t help that I was wearing shorts.

Saturday mornings at our house are for watching English Premier League soccer matches on Fox Soccer Channel. Saturday afternoons are for going to the park and kicking the ball.

Lately, though, Saturday afternoons haven’t been cooperating.

A couple of weeks ago we thumbed our noses at the weather and went to the park to kick the ball for a couple of hours. My youngest son, Robert, fell in a puddle at some point and was soaked all the way through. The rest of us weren’t much better. At last, teeth chattering and fingers and toes frozen, we called it a day even though we were having fun. At least the temperature was in the low 40s.

This past Saturday it was colder and wetter than it had been the previous Saturday. The boys were getting a bad case of cabin fever, but it was just too cold and too wet to go to the park and play soccer.

Robert had $8 he had desperately wanted to spend for a week and had been begging someone to take him to a store. My oldest son, Harrison, with a birthday coming up, wanted to go out and make sure that I knew exactly what gifts he wanted.

Feeling a little shut-in myself, I relented and agreed to take the boys on a shopping spree.

Nathan is content to sit and play video games all day if we’ll let him, and he declined the offer to go with us. However, I will not let Nathan sit and play video games all day, so he shut down the Game Box and came with us anyway.

I let the boys decide where we would go and followed them, so to speak. Eventually, I found myself wandering aimlessly through the mall.

Already this venture had turned out poorly for me: Robert forgot his wallet at home so I had to buy the toy he wanted with the promise that he would pay me back (a promise quickly forgotten). Nathan complained that it wasn’t fair that Robert got something and he didn’t, so I found myself buying two new toys.

Harrison found what he wanted for his birthday right away, but that didn’t prevent us from aimlessly wandering.

I am on record that I despise shopping, and shopping at a mall is the worst, as far as I am concerned.

Part of the reason I hate shopping is that I hate spending money. Another part of it, I’m sure, is that I was traumatized as a child every time my mother took me shopping. It seemed that she was constantly “running errands,” and I was constantly dragged along with her. There were a thousand things I would have preferred to spend my time doing (playing video games, for instance – we had an Atari back then with Pit Fall and Asteroids).

And she always made me try on clothes. Trying on clothes has to be the most banal of activities imaginable. I understand the necessity of it, particularly when you’re a kid and you’re constantly outgrowing stuff, but just because it’s necessary doesn’t mean it’s not mind-numbingly boring.

I will confess that when I was about Harrison’s age I did like to meet my friends at the mall and “hang out,” but unlike Harrison’s aimless wanderings on Saturday, my friends and I had a purpose when we wandered around the mall. We were there to check out and chat up the girls who were aimlessly wandering around the mall.

Saturday, we had made two completely useless laps around the mall, going at a snail’s pace.

“Is there something in particular you’re looking for?” I asked Harrison.

“No,” he said aimlessly, continuing to wander at just a crawl. We were even with the entrance where we’d come in.

“This is twice we’ve passed the door,” I told Harrison. “I’m not coming past here again without leaving.”

“Okay,” he said.

“Why are we here?” I pressed.

“I just want to hang out with my dad and my brothers,” Harrison said.

Pshaw.

I’m the first to admit that hanging out with me is a joyful experience, but since when did a 14-year-old boy want to hang out with his younger brothers and his father without some ulterior motive in mind?

It’s not that we had a bad time wandering aimlessly around the mall. We laughed and joked with each other. But there’s only so much aimless wandering I can stand. At last, I’d had enough and started urging the boys toward the exit.

When we got in the car, I suggested that we thumb our noses at the weather and go change into some soccer playing clothes and kick the ball regardless of how wet or cold it might be. The boys all agreed, and a little while later we had mud up to our knees and were running around in the puddles kicking the ball.

I realize the folks shopping at the mall were drier and warmer than we were, but I knew, too, that we were having more fun.

Of course, there weren’t any 14-year-old girls to check out or chat up while we were playing in the mud.

Rob Peecher is editor of The Oconee Leader, and while he recognizes the importance of checking out and chatting up girls when you’re a 14-year-old boy, he’d rather play in the mud.

---