The BiWay Bag

According to my oldest daughter – I’m a complete and utter embarrassment. So-called for a mixed-bag of unintentional and somewhat deliberate reasons.

Case in point: my wardrobe (who knew that t-shirts emblazoned with Scott Baio could reap such mortification), my naturally greying hair, my inevitable progression in years (both very much unintentional); or the time at the grocery store when I clunkily re-enacted the going to school scene in Book Smart and my daughter prayed for the floor to open and swallow her whole (extremely deliberate).

There’s a certain element of déjà vu here – no matter that this time around I happen to be the one standing on the opposite end of the precipice. Now I’m the abject cause of this ignominy – rather than the red-faced teenager stamping her feet in futility at her clearly clueless yet hopelessly embarrassing parents.

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Alas, I know all too well the mortification caused by parents. And having come through the other side, I realize there’s no sense in combating it or trying to change it or even attempting to minimize it. It’s a right of passage that most teenagers will have to pass through. Hopefully, they’ll make it out unscathed – maybe even with a thicker skin to boot.

Looking back on my angst-filled teen years, I realize that as time has passed – the embarrassment has faded. In some cases – it’s hardened into annoyance – even acceptance. I challenge anyone to sit down at a restaurant with both my parents and bear witness to the two of them ordering off the menu – and I defy you not to be annoyed (maybe even mortified) by the scene that will inevitably unfold.

Then there’s the case of the BiWay bag.

For those of you not in the know – BiWay (or the BW Boutique) was a low-end, discount chain store found across Canada up until 2001 when they shuttered their cheap-ass doors for good. Before there was Wal-Mart and Giant Tiger and Dollarama – there was BiWay.

BiWay – with it’s not-to-be-missed black and white sign out front and its telltale black-and-white shopping bags. Everything in the store was sorted out in bins or displayed up on the walls for shopping convenience.

If you needed personal products like shampoo or deodorant – even makeup – you weren’t going to find a lower price than at your local BiWay. If you wanted towels or sheets or linens – and quality wasn’t top of mind (but budget was) – then BiWay was your store. 

Much to my chagrin – and I’m guessing many others of my generation – BiWay also happened to sell off-brand clothing and shoes. During my junior high days, if I wanted a Ralph Lauren short-sleeve polo shirt, I had to prepare myself to spend fifty plus dollars. OR – I could go to BiWay, spend considerably less money and end up with the exact same shirt without the insignia over the breast.

If it was a pair of Tretorn shoes I coveted, I could plan to pay $60 of my hard-earned babysitting money OR I could pick up a pair of Sparx at good, old BiWay.

I knew of some industrious kids who took the BiWay brand clothing and found ways to disguise it – most notably by finding old brand name clothing, removing the labels and then sewing them onto the BiWay stuff. This worked remarkably well with the Lacoste alligator – not so well with Polo brand.

But none of this really matters here. In my neighbourhood and at my school – most of us kids had BiWay clothing peppered throughout our wardrobe, we brushed our teeth and combed our hair with BiWay goods. That wasn’t the issue so much as being caught red-handed – you and/or your family members in a BiWay store or carrying one of the glossy BiWay bags in public.

That huge, black-and-white plastic bag is hilariously nostalgic to me. It signifies a time in my life when my biggest worry and the worst possible thing to ever happen to me – was being at the mall with my mother while she unapologetically carried a BiWay bag. 

Oh the shame I felt – at the fact that my family shopped at BiWay; at the fact that my mother refused to stoop to hiding a BiWay bag in her purse to avoid teen scrutiny. Only I realize looking back on it now – it couldn’t have been genuine shame I felt because it’s kind of funny now.

Once upon a time, I was sitting at Devonshire Mall waiting at the Dairy Queen for my mother who was finishing up her errands. She assured me she’d save BiWay for the end and be quick and discreet before coming to collect me. Then I caught sight of her. Actually, I didn’t see her at first due to the fact that she was hidden behind the gigantic, bulging black-and-white BiWay bag she was lugging along.

No word of a lie, this bag was about as large as Santa’s sack full of toys. And based on the size of this thing, my mother had bought all manner of clothing, shoes, household items, school supplies and personal hygiene products.

Quick and discreet? My Sparx-clad foot! There was no hiding this bag. It could not be tucked secretly into a purse and there was definitely no surreptitiously slipping it into another larger bag. There was no such thing as a LARGER bag. In fact, there was no LARGER bag than this in existence in all of the universe. This thing had to be hefted up over one’s shoulder in order to carry it properly without it swinging and taking out entire families walking next to us in the mall.

I sped up ahead of my mother – making a beeline for the mall exit. But so much for me pretending the grunting woman lugging the Santa sack of a BiWay bag ten feet behind me was not connected to me in any way. She kept calling to me – by name no less! Asking me questions and making conversation that could most definitely wait until we were safe in the confines of our car with the abhorrent bag hidden in the trunk.

The following week at school, Sally* approached me in the classroom – ensuring there was an ample audience – to inform me that word was out that my mother had been spotted shopping in BiWay mere days before. I can’t remember what I said or did – but I can assure you my cheeks would have reddened and I probably half-heartedly tried to refute the truth.

Later that day, I marched home on a mission. All the embarrassment I had felt earlier had morphed into anger directed at my mother and the gigantic, visible from space BiWay bag. Why did she have to shop at BiWay when there were so many other stores around? How could she do this to me?

After I unleashed my anger and embarrassment, my mother asked me: “How do you think Sally knew I was at BiWay?” I was stupefied dumb. “Because her mother was there too. I ran into her and we had a chat.”

And now here I am – 30 years later, yet again caught up in this never-ending cycle of teens being embarrassed by their clueless parents. I’m assuming that if you’re a parent and your kids aren’t embarrassed by some aspect of your very being, then you just aren’t doing it right.

So it goes – parents will embarrass their kids with their lame clothes and their annoying habits. They’ll whistle when they breathe and spit when they talk. They’ll the say the wrong thing and do the wrong thing. They’ll shop at the wrong store.

Our kids will be embarrassed . . . and all will be right in the world.

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