The Evolution of Kmart in My Brain

I don’t know if this is true everywhere, but it was certainly true in central jersey.  As a kid the most horrifying, embarrassing, awful thing that could ever happen to you is that someone from school would see you at Kmart.  Of course it didn’t matter that if someone saw you at Kmart then they, too, would also be there, this was the 80’s, nothing made sense back then.

My parents are immigrants.  Immigrants LOVE Kmart.  My mother was always dragging me there and making me try on the most horrifying clothes.  My mother and I have yet to recover from the ensuing arguments about how acid-washed jeans from Kmart DID NOT fit like acid-washed jeans from Guess.  Kids of immigrants are dumb.  We don’t care that we’re going to grow out of those expensive Guess jeans in a month, we want to be cool and American.  But kids of immigrants lack a back-bone when it comes to their parents because immigrant parents are no joke.  You do not fuck with a middle-eastern mother, you just don’t.  And if you do…well, it will be the last time you try that.  Trust me. 

Now, many many years later, I’ve discovered something very disturbing.  I am turning into my immigrant mother.  I went to one of the only Kmart’s in Manhattan last night for the first time in 10 years and it was like stepping into heaven paved with incredible deals at every turn.  It’s the most wonderful place on earth!  There were so many things I wanted to buy—knives, hand towels, plants—they have it all!  And it’s so so cheap!  Living in Manhattan for so long you forget that normal people do not pay $5 for a cup of coffee. 

From now on, Kmart and I, we’re BFF’s.  But don’t tell my mother.