Gift Shops of the Greater United States

I’ve alluded to this before, but my wife absolutely loves gift shops. And I mean loves them. I can walk through the door of the average gift shop, make a quick casual loop around an aisle or two (hands always in my pockets so as not to touch or break anything), and head back out happy as a clam. Not so with Nan. For her, each gift shop is a new and exciting experience. She can’t wait to see what’s around every corner. She talks about how so-and-so would want this or someone-else would love that, always handling everything that catches her eye. And she deliberates at length about buying things that seem so impractical to me I can’t imagine what she’s thinking. “Where would we put that?” “What would we possibly do with it?” “What is it and why would anyone pay that much for it?” …But such questions are annoyances. She has a vision for it, and I’m just being a poop. (I’m not a poop, in general, but I can definitely play that role.)

For the first month of our trip, the kids and I had smiles on our faces and wandered happily around the gift shops with Nan. By month two, we were getting bored with the shopping, but we humored mom’s interests as best we could. The third month we attempted a rebellion. We said we wouldn’t go in any more gift shops and that was final. Nan said that was fine, we could just wait outside. At the first gift shop, in she went and outside we sat. A few minutes later I was picturing some odd new piece of art or a set of matching Hawaiian shirts and couldn’t stand it anymore. So I grabbed the kids and in we went, setting ourselves up for another month of gift shops. Now that we’re in the fourth month, we’ve resigned ourselves to the gift-shop tour, and as I’ve accepted the inevitable I find I’ve learned a few things.

First, I’ve learned that gift shops sometimes contain local jokes or information that everyone in the area knows but that are new to us tourists. I’ve chuckled at things like SLO being the widely-accepted and even bragged-about moniker for San Luis Obispo and at t-shirts in Seattle that sported slogans like “To Err is Human—to ARRRR is Pirate” and a ripped off logo for “ARRRbucks Coffee.” We’ve seen information for art shows and vegetable festivals and celebrations of local heroes or people in need. We’ve chatted with gift-shop employees and owners about must-see attractions and the best local restaurants and the life of running a gift shop, and we’ve found that some of the local color is definitely for sale or casual review in gift shops.

Second, I’ve learned that gift shops reinforce the local stereotypes as best they can because that’s what we tourists really care about. We want to buy cheesy replicas of the Golden Gate Bridge or a street car in San Francisco, a pot covered with cactus art in New Mexico, a small plastic pair of cowboy boots in Texas, and the jawbone of an alligator in Florida. Why do we want those things? Did I fall in love with cacti in the desert? Did I have to kill an alligator with my bare hands to save a member of my family in Florida and want to be reminded of my heroics? Do most people in Texas work as cowboys? Are a bridge and some street cars all there is to San Francisco? No to all those questions—but it’s the stereotypes and the well-known attractions that we tourists want to see, want to remember, and want to show off to others saying “Look! We were there!” This stuff isn’t endlessly immortalized in gift shop after gift shop just to keep China’s manufacturing sector fully employed; we tourists really WANT to buy it. And we do so, with joy in our hearts.

And finally, I’ve learned that both gift shops and the people who visit them vary widely in their mindsets. Some gift shops are as cheapo as they can be, providing as many chintzy plastic objects as they can squeeze onto their cluttered shelves. Some mix the cheapo stuff with some better, more interesting stuff—like books, objects that might be considered actual art by local artists, indigenous food, and substantive information about local history or sites. And some gift shops are high-brow, with only nicer things that cost significant money but you can understand why people might pay it. We’ve been in some very nice shops with impressive furnishings, aged wine from local vineyards, clothing that doesn’t have off-color slogans printed on it, excellent educational materials, and one-of-a-kind art objects. And just as gift shops vary, so do their patrons. There are “Lookers” (I’ll admit it—I’m a looker) (so to speak) who wander in, make a quick pass through, then out they go. There are the “Hopefuls” who head in excited at the prospect of buying something or, better, of getting their parents to buy them something. And there are the “Shoppers,” the people who are always on the lookout in every shop for just the right thing for self or other. You can hear them walking around saying, “I LOVE that!” or “So-and-so would LOVE that! “ or “Don’t you just LOVE that?” And the truth is, I often do. I mean, who wouldn’t want a plastic street car, some miniature cowboy boots, a pot with a cactus painted on it, and an alligator's jawbone?