Most knitters have “yarn shop accidents”. I, doing my best as usual to not blend in with the crowd, have “paper store accidents” (Screibwarenladen accidents, to be more specific).
I went to a paper store today on my way back from the grocery store (all in the mall right next to my apartment), meaning to get a paintbrush to go with the set of paints I bought a while ago (a birthday present to me! I swear I’m not going crazy!).
(Okay… maybe I am going crazy. I mean, come on! Paints?! It’s been QUITE a few years since I last un-self-consciously played with paints. Going to all these art museums is having an odd effect on me.)
Anyway, only €2, I thought, I can afford that, easy. Brought a €10 bill because that was the smallest I had for ‘play’ money. Walked into the store. Located paintbrushes. Picked up a set for schoolkids, seeing as there was a wide range of sizes and the pack was cheap. Decided to see what else the shop had cleared out of the warehouse to bring up to the store room, as they’re selling everything right now because they’re going out of business. :( Sad, sad times these are.
Oh, I didn’t get a good look at the stickers here last time, says the voice in my head. Maybe I should look again. Hey, those flowers would go well with your current sticker collection. Ooh, look, temporary tattoos! says the voice in my head. You just found your old collection of those before leaving the country, you should buy some more to start up the collection again!
Walk around some more. Stop and stare at a wall of blank notebooks, realize that they put out new notebooks in the last week. Oooh, pretty. Don’t need notebooks.
Hey! What’s that writing on the shelf at eye level? says the voice in my head.
“Briefpapiere” is written on a piece of paper and affixed to the shelf.
“Brief… papiere?” says the voice in my head. “Wait a minute. Brief, that’s ‘letter’. And Papiere! Papers! Could this be… IT IS! STEPHANIE, WE FOUND STATIONERY! HERE! FINALLY! HURRAY!”
The voice in my head doesn’t have so much control that I did a happy dance then and there, but I think the hungry look in my eye as I snatched up the stationery sets might have startled some of the other customers a bit.
Armed with my lovely, lovely choices, I went up to the cash register and handed them everything. Then I watched as it added up. Somehow it jumped reeeeally quickly to €6… to €11… wait, I only have a €10 bill! I can’t pay that much! Then I calm down as he takes off the 20% clearance discount, putting the total just below €10. Okay. I can take that. It’s much, much more than I planned to spend. But it’s going to a good cause, right? Letters and penpals and making people happy through mail. And the poor store, going out of business. (A lot of my money has managed to go there lately. I’m not sure if it’s the sympathy for the people that work there or the 20% off everything in the store…)
Oh, I get it now, says the voice in my head as I head toward the escalator to get out of the mall and out of temptation. So THAT’S what an “accident” at a store is. That was fun. When do we get to do it again?
I’ve had that happen. It’s fun and then it’s not so fun. At least in the end you have lots of nice things, even if you don’t have all that money anymore.
Speaking of nice things, my stamps came! Whoo!