I was in a Big Box superstore the other day. I try not to go into these places too often as they confuse me. This one was bigger than my wee farmy. Much bigger. Filled with the most curious collection of useless objects. AND it had christmas music screeching and shoving me into a scurry. Christmas Carols In November make me want to Bite Someone’s Head Right Off!
I will tell you why I was in this Mammoth of a Store. You know I avoid them like the plague preferring their small familiar dusty predecessors. But I was on my travels last week, and I needed to buy a book. I cannot function unless I have a book. Words are like my air. Books are my television. My handbag has to be big enough to contain a book, a camera, a wallet and a lipstick. I read every day. I read before I go to sleep, while I am waiting in a cue, on the plane, in the bus, on the train, in the car (when I am a passenger of course), I can read and walk the dog at the same time. I can read and cook at the same time. Well, you get the picture. Now, I knew that that night I would finish my current book and I cannot sleep if I have just finished a book. I MUST start the next one first. This is just how it is. I was slightly panicked.
So I asked Third Son to take me to the book store. He told me the bad news. Both of the BIG book stores in his city had closed recently. There were no others in the town. No book stores at all. We stared silently at each other for a minute. He knew that this was not good. We would have to go to one of the big bad stores, maybe they would have books, he said hopefully. 
The second Big Scary Box Store we went to did have books, they had twelve books as a matter of fact, and I bought the two I had not read. Did I also mention that I am not a discriminating reader. I read anything I can lay my hands on.
So I took my two books to the check out and began what I imagined would be a simple transaction. The girl sharply scanned the books and then brightly asked did I want to sign up for a store credit card and receive eighteen percent off my current purchase? I said to the girl, who was a cheerful blowsy wee thing with heavily made up eyes. I said,” No thank you, I only buy something if I can pay for it.” She looked at me like I was spouting Greek.
She blinked. “But you would,” she spluttered, “with your credit card and you get eighteen percent off your current purchase” She looked at my two little books then back to me.
“So do you want to sign up for a credit card and receive eighteen percent off your current purchase?” she said again, more clearly this time.
” No, honey”, I told her gently “that is borrowing money. I don’t need to borrow money. I only buy something if I have the money to pay for it.”
” Oh,” she stared hard at her screen as though it would give her a prompt. Completely at a loss.
I said to her carefully “Why would I buy something I cannot afford.” Someone turned the volume up on the Christmas Carols.
The skinny lady behind me in the queue, shoved her over laden cart closer to me and started the queue shuffle. I whipped my head around to her and stilled her with one of The Looks.
“You know what I mean?” I said to the girl. She cast panicked looks around. “If I can’t afford it, why would I buy it?”
Skinny Lady began to loudly rummage in her handbag, bringing out her fat purse. Full of skinny credit cards no doubt.
“So you won’t be wanting to sign up for a store credit card and get eighteen percent off your current purchase?” the girl said hopefully. I shook my head and tried REALLY hard not to sigh.
“That will be 18.95” she squeaked and took a deep breath. “Would you like to purchase one of our store bags for 95 cents and receive a 5 cent discount every time you shop with us again?”
Her screen prompt was not helping her. She ran out of breath. Third Son wandered off towards the doors. The Christmas soundtrack paused between tracks. Suddenly I felt sorry for her. Maybe she wouldn’t spend her entire life in debt. Maybe she would resist the lure of The Card held out by a faceless myopic banker who would live off her interest for the rest of her life.
I took out a twenty and gave it to her. She gave me my change, concentrating hard on the palm of my hand. I smiled at the girl and then just for good measure I smiled slowly at the skinny lady. I jammed my new books into my handbag and turned to leave. Though I knew perfectly well that if there had been a bell on The Girls counter she would have been bashing at it in seconds desperately calling. NEXT! NEXT!
c
PS Above is the new rake for the hay! Well, new to us. It is looking lovely in the last of the light on a lovely Thanksgiving evening. Ni Night. Have a lovely Green Friday tomorrow.
The Kitchen's Garden 
80 responses to “barn windows.. and staying out of debt.”
Hooray for you, c!!! Getting out of debt and living within our means are topics that are not received well in our current age of instant gratification. As a financial coach, these are the two issues I deal with the most with the people I am coaching (along with developing a cah flow plan (budget)). PS- that is a great looking rake!
Oh ted you are a financial coach, good for you, that is a great job. I love budgets, when i was raising all my kids as a single mum with so LITTLE money I made a budget every week.. I used envelopes to divide up my pay, the kids and i always knew down to the last cent how much we had for treats like meat or fish and chips or a pineapple or icecream. I am terrified of debt, it would have sunk me.. c
We do the budget (monthly) but it is broken down into weekly amounts, and we use the cash envelope system for everything that possibly can. I didn’t learn my financial lessons until later in life (about 8 years ago), but since then we have elliminated all of our debt except our house, and we’re working hard on that.
Debt is a black cloud, like sitting on a thorn, it must be liberating to get rid of it!c
I love flustering people. 🙂 I hope that she’ll think about what you said!
I was trying to make a point when the poor girl was under pressure to keep the line moving, however.. c
Wow, great story. Enough said.
Thank you wanda, I must pop over to your place and see what you are up to, I have not heard from you in a while.. c
Love this. We learned the hard way about only buying what we could pay for, and a couple of things about that make me sad. One of them is how absolutely alien it is to so many of our contemporaries to not buy something we really, really want just because we don’t have the cash to pay for it. And the other is how choosing to have a smaller home, a smaller car (and only of of them!), and spending our money at those lovely, dusty, welcoming shops makes my kid’s friends think she’s poor. Still, it’s the right thing. I know it. And I would have LOVED to see you give The Look to that skinny, impatient woman. People like her make me crazy!
Isn’t that sad that where you shop is a statement in a young persons eyes. Though it is a wonderful choice to go smaller. I adore our little house. And our tiny car that runs on cooking oil. We are judged by these things but I am easily pigeonholed as an eccentric foreigner who does not know any better, and actually I find this quite liberating!! It is such an easy equation though isn’t. Do I have enough money for this? No? Then I cannot have it. Period. Good for you Desi, you are teaching your kids the right way.. c
A great post in so many respects: promoting reading, supporting Main Street businesses, finances 101 (although we use credit cards occasionally, we always, always pay off the balance in full when the bill arrives) and showing us you are a woman who is true to herself. Well said on each point.
It seems such a logical point of view, and I am the age i am and have NO debt AT ALL. Only because if I can’t pay for it I can’t have it. I was taught this by my grand dad who according to my grandmother made her wait for a washing machine until he had saved up the cash to buy one. She did their washing in the bath until then, with a weird wringer thingy that attached to the sides of the bath. So if she could do it in the depression then so can I.. c
It was a good post dear Cecilia… I am thinking same with you about credit cards… And how sad bookstores closed… Thank you, Have a nice weekend, with my love, nia
You are right about the loss of bookstores, there are two major chains here, one is gone and the other is struggling.. not good at all.. c
A dream… I am coming to open a new bookstore even it could be a cafe and bookstore too 🙂 Actually I have so many dreams… for a long time, I am thinking to open a cafe in Istanbul but it should be also a knitting house and also a bookstore and also a small boutique hotel for my foreign friends and to invited them to Istanbul and to be their guide in the city… Something like that, but not easy… I can’t dare to the this… Have a nice day dear Cecilia, with my love, nia
Do THAT! a knitting house and bookstore and a cafe .. all in the same place.. i would love that! oh and the hotel.. yes yes.. c
You know their employers require them to ask that stuff. Makes it worse doesn’t it. Go to the library. It’s free.
I know they make the girls say it but they shouldn’t. It is a very dangerous practice to encourage an entire population to get into debt! And I do go to the library as well. It is so funny, the other day i read a library book I had to keep, you see I like to own books. And i HAD to have this book. So I begged my Mother in Law to go into the library, (she knew the woman) and ask her if I could steal it and just pay for it!!She said YES!! .. c
I agree with the library idea. But when you’re away, it’s a bit harder. I’ve put off getting a ‘tablet’ such as Amazon’s Kindle for years now, saying it’s unnatural to read from a screen. And yet I write with one – it’s called a computer – and am on one for reading as well, much of many days.
The most unnatural thing for me is to walk amidst blaring fluorescent lights and stark merchandise nobody needs – much of it toxic and most of it from China – and it assaults my spirit in ways little else can. My husband has made gifts for those closest to us this year – as he does many years. One time it was jewelry boxes, this year it’s hand mirrors. He finds and saves rare pieces of wood for such occasions. Then we process local organic fruit in the dehydrator (some of it we grow ourselves, but as we’re just emerging from a long strech of drought, we buy some from local farmers), and ship that off as well. And I’ll pop into Ross once in awhile during the entire year to see what they have at deep discount, and snap that up for year-end gifting. They are in my mind recyclers anyway, and I can usually manage their store here on the island. Anything else in the way of big box is simply out of the question for anything but absolute necessities – oil changes, windshield fluid, computer paper.
I know we will one day have to give in to the tablets, but not yet, not yet.
I love your husbands presents, Oh how wonderful to receive such a hand made guft and the mirrors sounds so divine, last year i gave framed prints, And the year before that woodcut prints. Sometimes I quilt. This year I have been in and out of second hand stores and antique shops Of course John and I will give each other FARM STUFF! For my children I put the money I would have spent into my travel account, so I can visit them, they would rather see me. c
“StreTch” – whoops 😉
I gotcha.. c
Oh my goodness Miss Cecilia.. I have to agree with you. I even got up to clap. Christmas Carolers in November is a huge no no. Let Thanksgiving pass first sheesh. Or at least wait for the first official week of December.
I thought I heard clapping.. I thought it was the angels!! I am so grateful that you agree about christmas in november, shall we start a protest?!! c
Man! How long did I have to scroll down to write you a comment?!!
I love your stories, and this one is no exception, I can totally picture you in that Mega Mean Store…
Have lovely weekend.
I love how people can have a good old chat in the comments, there is some good reading in these ones for sure. thank you Giovanna, hope you are going to have a great saturday.. c
i used to work at one of those big box stores in my home town as i was putting myself through college. management insisted that we ask everyone who came through the checkout lines if they wanted to sign up for the store credit card to save 10% on their purchase.
i told my manager – to her face – that i refused to do that. i was not going to have people go into debt and be a slave to the lender for their purchases.
she replied that when she was an underling like myself that if she didn’t ask, she would have been fired.
“fine. go ahead, fire me.” i replied, turning my back on her and walking away.
i knew i was too valuable to the company for them to fire me. (and i continued working there long after).
(i’m like you – i need to be in the middle of a book (or two, or three) at all times.
Wow, good for you, that is awesome, standing up for your principles big time. Much braver than me, you put your job on the line.. I am impressed.. c
C, I think you’ve just experienced first hand why the world is in the midst of a GFC. Thanks for the timely reminder before the Christmas shopping temptations begin.. 🙂
I think it is time we were all encouraged to dig ourselves out of the mess, and live within our means instead of pointing the finger at shadowy politicians, well shadow and shady, and finger pointing really achieves very little.. have a great weekend celia.. c
I think I’d like to go shopping with you!! And after all that fun we could curl up with a good book! I’m right with you on the books…I love my books and have to them all around me so I can pick one up as soon as the urge hits! I do have several going on at once…I know, kinda crazy!! I’m curious what you think about the Kindle type books???
I am not sure about kindles, as a machine though they are better than nooks.. hands down, you can also read on your ipad too. Kindles are user friendly, but I feel I need to try and support bookstores and try to keep them open. I may be only a little drop in the ocean but my favourite place on a rainy day is a book shop (preferably with coffee). And I feel comfortable with books, plus as i have confessed I love to own them and see them lined up on my shelves.. have a good weekend Spice.. c
I had a feeling you’d love the feeling of holding and surrounding yourself with books! I am the same; I could spend hours in a bookstore, especially the quaint little shops. No electronic reading for me…except for blog posts!
last night John and i decided to go out, there were no movies we wanted to see, so we went to the bookstore after dinner, instead!! What a pair! c