A Stroll Gone Wild

Tracy and I have a few hours free on a Friday night and decided to do some Christmas browsing. Not shopping, per se, because I generally loathe "shopping" but just getting out an a brisk night and doing something other than sitting at home doing nothing. A good spot for strolling and chatting and browsing/window shopping is this place in Southlake. That local burg has done a magnificent job of creating a downtown/urban atmosphere (unlike Flower Mound's Parker Square, which is dismal by comparison) complete with Brownstone home living and hotels and such.

Anyway, we're strolling.
We're chatting.
We're browsing/window shopping.

We decide to stop in the local Apple store. We have friends who deserve gifts and computer accessories and iPod add-ons might be just the thing.

The place was overrun with happy middle-school teenagers having a blast. Sure, it looked like Abercrombie and Aeropostale and Hollister threw up all over them but they're in a retail store on a Friday night...

...hanging out.

Not the parking lot. Not behind the building. In the store. They're taking pictures of their friends using the camera attached to the computer and sending e-mails to taunt their friends who couldn't be there. They're pulling up songs on the store's iTunes list and telling their friends "you absolutely gotta hear this song." They're updating their MySpace pages with photos or showing their recent posts to their friends. Three girls huddled around a laptop and one fires off, "I absolutley KNEW he liked her and would be asking her to the movies!" Embarrassed giggles ensued.

I'm not kidding. The energy level in this retail establishment was palpable. A very hip and with-it vibe.

The staff didn't seem to mind. I think they understand that for every kid that was killing time there would be another start a sentence with, "Mom, there was this really cool iPod cover..." or "Dad, we totally have to add the camera feature with the updated software. You can do SO much more with it." The staff treated them with respect, too. One staffer, in the midst of selling about $2,000 worth of product to a customer, leaned over to one of the girls (who turned up a Justin Timberlake song really loud on the Bose speaker system and was getting with it), and said, "Hi. Listen. That's a really good song, isn't it? Anyway, would you mind turning it down while I help these nice people?" He could've been a jerk. But he chose to be nice. Like I said, I think they've been trained to understand that most of them either have expendable income of have parents who do...but in addition I think the guy was just a nice guy.

During the browsing I had a question that only a Mac guy who wasn't trying to sell me something would answer truthfully and my friend Chris T (link on the left) could help. I called him and while I was asking a question it got kind of loud while some teens were checking out "Hot Or Not Dot Com" and I told Chris about how I was kind of surprised that of all the places teens could hang out they were in a retail Apple store...that Apple had definitely marketed cool (we'd both read the same book about that very thing) and I was seeing it first-hand.

Chris' response: "Well, they're definitely not hanging out at CompUSA on a Friday night, are they?"

The question got answered and Tracy looked at some software for her Mac and then we were off to dinner at Chipotle's.

But, manalive, the folks at Apple have it figured out if it's cool for teens to hang out in a computer store on a Friday night. They've got it figured out, too, that if you treat them with respect and understand that middle schoolers out and about on a Friday night will pretty much act like squirrels released from captivity in a sack and just need a reminder, they'll come back.

And spend money.

And want to do so.

And do so joyfully.

Even if that means your display laptops take a gazillion pictures of 4 girls wearing Abercrombie and furry boots so they can text message that photo to their friends who are at the movie theatre half a mile over.