Shopping Tip Of The Day

I’ve been carrying around an Urban Expressions “Sandra” wallet in Kelly Green for about three years. I say wallet because that’s what they call it but it’s really a self-contained universe all on its own. It’s got two open-wide kisslock sections, a deep zippered pocket and some easy access card slots – that’s a lot of storage for the average purse, let alone wallet.  I do put it in a big purse or a laptop bag as the situation calls for, but I most often carry it alone into stores or out to dinner. It makes a quite a sensation when you slap it down on the bar at Martini Night.

I love this thing so much that I’m sharing my Shopping Tip Of The Day with you. It regularly retails for $35 – 40 but Shoemall has it now in gold metallic and black patent finishes for $14.00 plus 20% off and free shipping.  That’s $11.99 for a $40 item. And when you consider that this is a knock off of a combination of Hobo’s Lauren and dear departed Laurette  wallets which go for $110 – 160+, just think of the savings.

Here is my own (I should say “old” because I just bought the gold one from Shoemall) rather lumpy but überfunctional wallet, shown both packed and unpacked:

On one side, I keep my money, my phone and my earbuds. On the other – and this is what makes this wallet so fabulous – I carry:

• a baggie full of antibacterial handwipes, bandaids, safety pins and a Tide Pen
• my rarely worn but sometimes necessary  clip-on name badge
• whatever jewelry I take off while I’m on the road
• a random key to something
• an ink pen
• a comb
• a folding mirror
• a pill box
• an emery board
• 2 lipsticks
• my good luck hope the plane doesn’t crash Padre Pio keychain
• a magnifier
• a small note pad

When the wallet lies open, there are the usual credit and insurance cards and driver’s lisence. I keep receipts and some extra folding money in the zippered part. Really, it’s miracle of function and design.

New Jersey Disaster Area

I am going to show you a picture of disaster. Here it is:

This is the Lenox Warehouse in Cranbury NJ. Here’s the code: the letter A marks the door to the high class bridal registry full sets of dinnerware Lenox Retail store; the letter B marks the entrance to the warehouse; the red bar indicates a police car parked sideways so the shoppers can’t pass it and park in the loading dock area.

Now this is the same Lenox Warehouse that replaced 75% of it’s usual stock with specialized Lenox Christmas items and giftware and then sent out postcards to all of NJ and part of PA announcing a special sale with items up to 80% off retail prices.

Question: how many parking spaces do you see there?

Right.

So if you miss  a  fistfight in the parking lot over the too few parking spaces (and let me remind you that we are all fresh off the post-hurricane 2-hour gas station line battlefields here) be assured that you’ll get another chance inside the warehouse itself which is packed with a lot of shoppers and stacks and stacks of boxed giftware. People disobey the rules of shopping cart traffic and not only start out going the wrong way down the aisles or darting across the center stacks to collide with orderly shopping cart pushers, but they block the intersections to chitchat or sit cross-legged on the floor to unbox every single ornament that they are considering buying and then jam it and as much of the packaging that will fit back into the box. All this happens in a space that is heated 15 degrees past what it should be and where every voice, platter smash and screaming baby ricochets around the concrete and metal ceiling truss decor.

So it can be a fairly aggravating activity if you go with the wrong expectation (a pleasant experience). But this is why people go: LUXURY GOODS AT BARGAIN PRICES. The more you spend, the more the discount off the total is, so most people that are in there are stocking up on I don’t know what but they have two carts full of it. I bought this:

Lenox 9.5″ Floral Medley Vase

This thing retails for $72.00 and is currently on sale for $27.95. The warehouse had it marked for 19.95 plus I had a coupon so I got it – giftboxed – for about $17.50. I also picked up a couple of  sets of classy b0ttle stoppers for about $11.75 each. I’m taking the DIL there after work this week. So exciting – her first visit!

After regrouping over lunch, we headed for Walmart where we peaceably navigated the parking lot and aisles without incident. No crowds making news by trampling each other, no strikers, no incidents at all. So whatever you see on the news about horrible low-class bargain hunting Have Nots at Walmart  know that it’s not true. The real mayhem is with the no-class bargain-hunting Haves at the Lenox Warehouse.

Weird

Here’s 3 weird things, or 2 weird things if you bundle like events together:

Weird Thing 1. In downtown Denver, there are free shuttle buses that runs every two minutes the full length of 16th street and stops briefly at every corner.  The drivers watch in the mirror to see if people are still stepping off before they shut the doors and continue on. So one assumes they see a lot of feet during the course of the day. I was getting off the shuttle at the end of the line and as I walked past the front of the bus, the driver stuck her head out of the window and complimented my shoes and asked me where I got them. That never happened to me before.

Weird Thing 2. Or possibly Weird Thing 1a. In Denver airport, as I was working my way through the security check  (pat down. ugh. it’s a free show. everyone watches.) a middle-aged, middle-of-the-road kind of male TSA agent picked up my shoes from the bin and said “Nice shoes!” One assumes they see a lot of shoes during the course of the day.

Would you like to see these remarkable shoes? Here they are:

Ryka Leather and Mesh Slip-on Skimmers from QVC now on clearance for $23.50

 Big deal, right? I bought three pair. I was wearing the black ones on the shuttle and the blue ones in the airport. I can’t wait to see what happens when I wear the beige ones.

Weird Thing 3. I had a window seat on the plane for the trip home. About an hour out from landing, I noticed a collection of water droplets streaking across the outside of my window. I was trying to assess what the chance of me being sucked out through the little porthole if the window fell out when I drifted off to sleep for a few minutes. When I opened my eyes, the clouds all around were pink. I thought maybe I was already on the other side of the porthole and was pleased to discover that my death was painless. The pink only lasted a few minutes then it was back to regular earthly-type clouds …

BUT! …

I suddenly had the answer to a work problem that I had been struggling with for a few days. So who’s to say? Maybe I was dead and the angles told me which cohorts were missing from my census base. And then they returned me to United Flight 229. And gave me a nosebleed.

This was a weird trip.