What is it about the store that makes kids go crazy?

The store, any store, has the ability to turn kids into crazy consumerist creatures. My six year old nephew is the perfect little kid unless we are at the store. Out of no where he has this urge to touch everything, buy everything, and should I refuse I am the “meany” of the world. I try not to give in to commercialism so I don’t buy him things unless they are necessary or educational but before you think I am a boring aunt these educational treasures are entertaining. Like the time he learned how to build a volcano and ran for cover only to find it was the world’s tiniest eruption and barely made a splash, I sure got a great laugh out of it. Anyway I digress. So what is at these stores that makes kids go insane?

I have a theory. Upon entrance to the store the cameras detect a child, they then automatically send a notification to the child consumer activator which releases a gas that only affects the child and thus makes them go insane by turning them  into a consumerist toy grabbing, tamper throwing, whiny gold digger. I say gold digger because from this point on the child will only go to the store with the weakest link, the person most willing to give in to the child’s demands and thus contribute to the toy’s multi-billion dollar industry.

Now it’s up to us to establish a defense mechanism. I simply enter my nephew into a contract binding agreement of what we will be buying and that it does not include a toy or any superfluous items. Should he break the contract I give him the look, the look my parents gave me when I disobeyed and put me right in place, but these days kids aren’t threatened by the look so I resort to the most sure fire way to get the child to behave by saying, “I’m calling your mommy.” It gets the job done.

How do you keep consumerism at bay?