Summer Madness at Old Navy

Oh the draw of $1 flip-flops.

You would have thought Old Navy was giving gasoline away Saturday morning. By the time I arrived with five eager nieces and nephews in tow, the Olathe store had been open only  15 minutes, and already moms were leaving the store as if it was on fire, kids and Old Navy plastic bags in hand.

In one of the wealthiest counties in the nation, the lure of cheap rubber flip-flops was just too much to resist.

I’ve never seen this many people inside my Old Navy. Inside, the lines at the cash registers – they were all open – were at least 20 customers deep. And yep, almost everyone had those darn flip-flops in their shopping carts.

All the carts were in use by our arrival, so I was left to carry stacks of shorts and jeans and capris and tank tops and bathing suits through the store.

Did I mention that the store was littered with 50 percent sale signs?

Did I mention that my nieces – who have adopted the psuedonyms of Izzy, Angela,  Leah and Makayla to keep the paparrazi away – have such good taste that hardly anything they chose was marked 50 percent off? I’ve taught them well, shame on me.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised that $1 flip-flops did nothing for them.  Good thing, too, because by the time we finished an hour of hunting and gathering and trying things on, the racks where said shoes used to hang had been picked clean by scavenging suburban mommies and teen-age girls. My niece “Leah” was lucky enough to find a pink pair in her size, and I think “Angela” found a pair, too. (I lost track of our purchases at some point on our journey through the Old Navy jungle.)

Our wait in line to check out took at  least 30 minutes, holding a ton of clothing in one arm, shifting from one foot to the next. My sister has raised the world’s most patient children, for not one complained of the wait.

And then, as we waited, it dawned on me: I hadn’t bought anything for myself in the madness. So I dispatched  two of the littlest ones to hunt the picked-over racks by the cash registers. They disappeared into the throng like Stanley and Livingston and, picking their way back through the crowd, came back with a prize: A pair of black, $1 flip-flops, in my size!

Oh the draw of $1 flip-flops.