Adventures in Shopping

My contribution to Max's class holiday party was to be 9 toys, something small in the $1-2 range, bingo prizes for the boys in the class. Someone else was assigned the "girl toys."

I decided, after a little discussion with Max, to go to the "party store" and pick up some bouncy balls for the boys. So, as I pulled into the store parking lot today, I was musing about what color bouncy balls and what size balls I would get. I didn't even notice that mine was the only car in the lot. It was early, I thought, the store had just opened.

It wasn't until I was standing directly in front of the door that I noticed, the store was gone. The building was totally empty. I just stood there with my hand on the door, looking through the windows in disbelief. My heart started to beat a little faster as I read the smallish sign announcing that they'd be happy to meet my party needs at the store located way the hell out in loopland with the freeway and the traffic and the 30 minutes to get out there and 30 minutes back.

I panicked a little. I may have actually stomped my foot.

Trudging back to the car I remembered that the last time we were in the big box toy store (for a Lego event) they had a dollar toy area near the front of the store. It was just a few blocks away. Surely I could find something there.

So, I was off to the big box toy store and as you might imagine the dollar toy area was completely picked over. Lots of empty bins and there were two items they had nine of, pink beaded bracelets and plastic handcuffs.

I seriously considered the handcuffs.

After a fruitless trip to the back of the store in search of bouncy balls, (I was so enamored of the bouncy ball idea - it was hard to give it up) I literally stumbled upon the perfect thing. A small plastic travel game similar to Connect Four. There were exactly nine of them on the shelf. I bought them all.

The lesson here, I guess, is don't get too attached to your original idea or you might miss the perfect thing right in front of you, or always have a stash of bouncy balls just in case, or only volunteer to bring cookies.