a-shopping we will go

I know I said I bought myself a burrito to celebrate my 38-minute table hike, but I couldn't resist using the same excuse (and my $30 in Macy's Rewards) to justify this purchase. 1) It has a stopwatch, the key feature I was looking for in new wrist candy, which I'll need for hiking, running and swimming; 2) I avoided pink this time (my last Baby G and dress watches were pink, and while I loved them completely, they went with nothing but the bubble-gummiest of outfits. Despite its relative bulk, this one will go with work clothes and weekend clothes; 3) It's darn cute.

So, I might as well blog the rest of my shopping day here, even though there is no more candy to speak of.

Purchase orders ... I get so excited about a trip to Fisher (huge office supply geek), but by the time I'm done, it just amounts to three hours of my life I'd like a refund on. The warehouse is one big absurdity. It's uninviting, hot, and completely disorganized (and for this blogger to call something disorganized, it has to be the absolute pits). Walk over to a bin of dry erase markers and find three with totally different price tags. The same marker is tagged $0.99, $1.29, $1.46. So I have to go and dig for three that are marked $0.99. There are 15 billion shelves of file folders, not even in any kind of relative proximity to each other. And checkout is a special joy. PO (and by then, PO'd) customers have to pay at a specific checkout at the rear of the warehouse. There is no scanner - the employee must key in every item by hand. Which, I must say, is still an improvement considering they used to have to handwrite every item on triplicate carbon forms. (Imagine how long it takes to ring up a $300 purchase order with that system.) The downside to "technological upgrades" is that your computer may just decide to go to sleep when you're logging in the very last item, causing the checker to have to unbag everything and start all over. By the time I leave Fisher, I am sweaty, grumpy, and in no mood to do my second purchase order (although year after year I plan to hit both vendors on the same day. Fool that I am.)

I decided to drop my new stuff at the classroom so it wouldn't be sitting around in the backseat, a whole bunch of stuff that would in no way interest your typical car-burglar, but still, who knows how tempting bunches of bulging brown bags are? Stopped off at the brand spanking new McDonald's to redeem a Southern Style Chicken sammy coupon, found it had expired, and ordered an iced tea with lemon instead. The brand-new building is very pretty, very modern. The cashier had a European accent. Everything's different. Except for the level of service. True to pre-renovation form, my iced tea w/lemon did not contain a lemon wedge. Welcome home, Ms. D_C!

At least I got to come home to my pretty new watch (and the 300-page users manual that I've already cast aside in favor of letting S. set the time and other bothersome details). Yay!