“This one!”
(blog only)

Janelle Meraz Hooper

When I was a kid in Oklahoma, sometimes summer days were so hot our moms kept us in. When the temperature headed towards 108 degrees before lunch, we’d head over to Hazel’s house and play the catalog game. Her mother kept all of the old Sear’s catalogs just for such days.

We would lie on the cool floor of her family den, reveling in the cool tiles caressing our bare legs. Halfway through the catalog we’d always wiggle over to a fresh, cooler spot. Hazel would pick the latest Sear’s Catalog out of the rack and we would begin. The game went like this: on each page we could pick one item. We’d point to it and say, “This one.” Sometimes we both wanted the same piece of clothing or toy and it was a race to see which one of us could touch it first and win it.

Of course it was just for fun. Neither of us was getting anything we wished for! We played our game page by page until we got to the end of the catalog. At the end of the game, we celebrated our wins with a Popsicle. I hadn’t thought of this since I was eight-years-old.

Why am I telling you this? A few Sundays ago, I was alone, flipping through the Macy’s Sunday flyer with absolutely nothing on my mind. I turned the page and saw the guy at the top of this blog. Totally without thinking, I touched him and called, “This one!” I was amused. And stunned. Where did that come from?

Slowly the memory of the Sear’s Catalog game came to me. Finally, I began to laugh. The game was still the same. I could call “This one!” all I wanted, and all I’d end up with was a grape Popsicle!

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Photo courtesy of Macy’s