Shopping for a Paint Stick

On Friday, Mark asked me if I wanted to go shopping with him the next morning. I said I supposed so, but where were we going? "We need paint and a paint stick." (Be it understood, here a paint stick = an extension for a paint roller, not something to mix paint with.)

As it is not unusual for me to go with him on shopping trips, I thought nothing of it. The next morning he woke me up rather earlier than I thought necessary, but I assumed he just wanted to get an early start.

The trip:

I should have expected something was up, right from turning the wrong direction at the end of the street, ("There's a bigger store in Ledgewood."), through getting off the highway one exit before Ledgewood to get gas, to continuing east for about an hour past the Ledgewood exit, but it wasn't until we were coming out of the Lincoln tunnel that it dawned on me exactly what we were doing 2 hours from home shopping for "a paint stick".

We had several weeks before been complaining what poor selections of fabric Joann's has, and that we needed to find someplace better to shop. So Mark took me to New York City, to the fabric district to get me my belated birthday present, and get some fabric to finish his own costume!

We spent several hours in and out of about 30 stores comparison shopping. After about 5 stores, we couldn't remember what any of the stores we wanted to return to were called, and after about 10, if we had even been in these stores before. We went into 1 store three times, I think.

It's very interesting shopping in privately owned stores in an area like that. There is a lot of competition, and they each had there own style of selling. In one, it was the pushy salesman type: the man followed us around with yard stick and scissors in hand; after every fabric touched, we had the same repetitious conversation: he would pull out the bolt, start measuring and say " You like? How much you want?" "No, I don't think I want that one." next bolt: "You like? How much you want?"... next aisle: "You like? How much you want?"

Then there was the"get a sale at any price" store: "That one? :$__. Too much? For you, $__. What, still to much? What about$__?"

There is also the entertainment of listening to other customers. There was one lady who was very insistent, even in broken English
"Hmm. 1 dolla!" - "No, this is $3. See the sign!" - "1 dolla!!" - "No, it's $3" - "1 dolla!!!" - "for you, $2.50" - "1 dolla!!!!"

After going through all the stores and trying to keep them straight, I thought my head was going to fall off, and only had the presence of mind to buy 2 things: chiffon fabrics. A lavender one for my regency dress, (not completely accurate, I know, but I think it'll look nice) and and a pink one. Since I wasn't sure what I would end up doing with the pink, at $0.99 /yard, 15 yards seemed like a nice round number.

We also got everything that Mark needed to finish his costume for our upcoming costume party, all at amazing prices.




Mark reminded me on the way home, that he never said we were shopping for a paint stick, he merely said we needed one!