Attention JC Penney Shoppers…We Have A Little Lost Boy

As the youngest of four children, I spent my preschool years tagging along with my mother on her weekly errands while my older siblings were at school.

One place we’d often go was Sunvalley Mall in Concord, California. According to a local historical website, “[When] Sunvalley opened in August 1967, [it] was said to be the largest air-conditioned regional shopping center in the world. It had 1.333 million square feet, including an ice-skating rink.” Large parts of Contra Costa County in the late 60s/early 70s were going through a transformation from farming into suburbia, with a lot of ranch-style homes being built over what was once fertile farm land.

Sunvalley, a logical extension of suburban living, was a novelty (at the time). I’m sure the mall didn’t lack foot traffic because, hey, who can say no to a new shopping experience? Certainly, my mom couldn’t. So off we’d sometimes go to Sunvalley to see what’s what and to buy clothes for growing kids. There was a Sears and a JCPenney at the mall, so, you know, there was affordable stuff for young families. By the way, JCPenney and Sears are still at the Sunvalley mall, and the Sears store is the last one left in California (I think they have five brick and mortar stores left in the United States).

All that backstory is to illustrate that I’d often get lost at the mall. At 1.333 million square feet, it’s not hard to lose a kid at that mall. I’m not sure if it was me wandering off, or my mom wandering off and not knowing I wasn’t right behind her, but it seems there were a couple of years there when I would routinely get lost at the mall. Indeed, one of my earliest memories was being lost in JCPenney. For the life of me, I couldn’t find my mom. I walked around the store, floor by floor, looking for my mom, but couldn’t find her.

What I didn’t know was that my mom was frantically looking for me and went to the mall’s information kiosk and asked if they could get on a loudspeaker to put out an All Points Bulletin on her lost kid. I didn’t hear the announcement, but a lot of people did. I ventured out into the mall from JCPenney and was kind of looking around when a woman came up to me and asked, “Is your name Ted?” I said or nodded yes. She then said your mom is looking for you, and she took me back into the store, where I waited for her at the candy store (yes, JCPenney used to sell candy back then). I must have looked like a sad sack because one of the candy store employees gave me some free candy! Hey, the little lost boy thing was actually working in my favor. When my mom finally came to get me, she wasn’t so much relieved that I had been found, but was more pissed off that I got lost in the first place. Clearly, this wasn’t the first time this had happened, nor would it be the last. My sister, when she was alive, would sometimes tease me about how many times I got lost at that mall. She said, “It seemed like every time we went there, you got lost — which ruined our time at the mall because we had to spend all our time looking for you.”

Flash forward to 1998ish, and I’m now a father of a small child. One day, my wife took our daughter and niece to Target. While at the ATM in the store, our kid wandered off (the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree, it seems), and our niece didn’t see where she went (even though she was asked to watch the toddler while my wife was getting cash). Once informed, the store’s staff went into lost child mode. They stationed security guards at the exits and entrances while there was an announcement about a little lost girl. I’m not sure how much time passed, but my wife got word that they found our kid.

Turns out, she had to poop.

She walked off and hid in one of those circular clothing racks to do her business.

To add to the drama, the kid was in that transition phase where she wasn’t wearing diapers. So, new clothes had to be bought (including underwear), and my poor wife had to clean up our kid in the store’s restroom while having PTSD-related shakes from the stress of a missing child.

Being a parent is fun.

You know, I used to find it amusing and annoying to see kids on leashes. But maybe it’s not such a bad thing in this day and age. After all, we’re so conditioned into catastrophic thinking with our stupid phones that keeping the kids on a short leash may bring a measure of peace to a parent’s frazzled mind. I’m sure my mom and wife probably wished they had one of these to prevent the dreaded “Attention shoppers. We have a little lost child” scenario that can freak out many young parents.