Just before kindergarten started I took Mack on a back to school shopping trip. We found almost of the supplies on our list at Target but for some reason I was really not liking their selection of backpacks. The only ones that weren’t bigger than my son were covered in licensed product marketing. You know – how there is Toy Story plastered on just about anything these days? Same goes for Angry Birds, Thomas the Tank, Mario. The list goes on and on and on and on and on.
I’m not really against any of this per-se but it’s not my favorite and for some reason the back pack was just a big deal for me. I wanted him to have something nice for his first school experience. Something we would look back on in pictures and memories as a memory of Mack – not a Disney/Pixar movie.
We still needed to go clothes shopping so I simply told Mackenzie that we would go to another store to find a backpack.
Mack: Moan…..groan….. “but mom, I like the Mario one..”
Me: (not really listening and continuing towards checkout) “Okay honey, we’ll just look at the next place.”
Then we got in the car and a brilliant idea – read confuse-the-crap-out-of-your-mother idea – came over Mack.
And that’s when Mack began describing to me a store he had “been to before.” One that was “full of backpacks and even has the perfect one” that he has always wanted.
“Oh really? And what is this store of your imagination called?”
“Megazon.”
Not Amazon. No, no; this is Megazon. Amazon is a place you go online – it’s not a store you visit in real life. I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up like that.
Mack described, in great detail, the offerings of this store and why we should go there. He even offered me directions.
“You take the freeway going up and then you get out of your car when you see the sign.”
Trust me – don’t follow these directions. You need to take the freeway going NORTH.
He also offered up the spelling for Megazon.
“H-K-L-P-Q. Megazon.”
“Right.”
We went to the thrift store.
And there were lots of nice, unadulterated, plain backpacks.
There was one, ONE, only ONE backpack with character stuff on it.
I hid it and offered up two options for Mack to choose from. Each were brand new and cost $1. That’s a thrift store people. It’s about being thrifty.
Then this jackass super nice old man comes around the corner and says “Well, my goodness young man, you need something more exciting than THAT” and proceeds to pull out the crappy Cars 2 backpack I had just got done hiding. “There, I knew there was a fun one in here somewhere” and hands it to Mackenzie.
“Mom, I knew this was Megazon! This is the backpack I was talking about!”
I paid 500% more (still only five bucks folks) for this used, ugly backpack that is still, in fact, larger than my child. So leaving Target because the backpacks were either too large or too ADVERTISING-FOR-THIS-MOVIE only meant that we’d end up with a backpack that was too large AND covered in licensed media.
Megazon, where are you now?
I have to admit, he looks pretty darn cute with that backpack though.
And I suppose, when Mack is all grown up we will look back on these pictures and remember the first day – the days in between – the day he graduates… and of course, we’ll remember Cars 2 
Read the other Owner’s Manual: Parenting – WTF? Stories Here.
