I didn’t know it at the time, but I wore an entirely fitting Tie o’ the Day on my foray into Office Depot this afternoon.
I needed toner for my printer, so Suzanne and I dashed to the Office Depot in Bountiful, to hurriedly grab two cartridges and get home by JUDGE JUDY o’clock. I managed to find one of the two toner colors I needed. The cartridge shelves were bare (and not because of X-mas), with little signs informing me I can order toner online.
In fact, 1/3 of the Office Depot had shelves like that– empty but with the little signs that might as well have said, “Too bad, sucker! Too bad you got off your couch and drove to our bigly brick-and-mortar store, which has almost nothing we advertise as being here. Too bad you wasted your time coming to see our clerks, each of which drives you bonkers with their ‘What can we help you with today?’, when our physical store has no more than one thing on your shopping list. ‘Sorry, we don’t have that in stock.’ Go home and order from our website, sucker.” That’s precisely what those signs on the bare shelves said to me. You can bet I wanted to say BITE ME! And I did think it and I did wave Tie o’ the Day in the direction of the clerks.
As we drove home, I griped incessantly about my yellow toner cartridge ordeal. And then Suzanne lost her marbles for a second and said words I never thought I would hear come out of her mouth, even if we live for all eternity. Suzanne said, “Just order the toner online.”
Excuse me!!! Blasphemy!!! It’s an office store! Suzanne knows dang well how I feel about going to office stores. She feels the same way I do about them. We basically have a fetish for office stores. We love any excuse to go to an office store to check out new Post-it Notes and pens and paper and staplers….. When we go to an office store, we want to see office products. We want to touch office products. We want to buy office products and put them in the car and drive home, giddy with anticipation.
And perhaps the saddest thing of all is that despite the inconvenience, I will continue to visit brick-and-mortar office stores for my office-y needs and wants. I’ll be like Ahab in MOBY DICK, stalking the white whale until his last breath. A yellow toner cartridge will drive me mad and be my doom. Glug, glug.
HOLIDAY TIE TALLY: 101 Bow ties. 202 Neckties.