Tuesday, August 17, 2010

BOOK STORES . . . THE GOOD, THE BAD, & THE UGLY

I have an "experience" to share with you today, but first things first.  This card features Stampin' Up!'s "Inspired by Nature" stamp set.  There's purposely no sentiment . . . sometimes I like to leave cards blank so they can be used for any occasion.  And now . . . on to my story . . . my son’s classes started at CPCC yesterday and, since his car was in the shop, I took him to the 6:30 p.m. class downtown. This meant that I could either spend the 3-hour duration of class on the road, going back and forth to home, or kill time in Charlotte. I decided to stay in Charlotte. My first stop was to be Target, but only IF I could find a parking place near the door. This particular Target has a parking deck, and the entrance is on the 3rd level. Lucky me . . . I found a place almost in front of the door! After spending an hour and a half at a snail’s pace in the store, I decided to check out. $85 later, I headed to the car, but not before I treated myself to a $5 Mocha Frap, easy on the coffee—add whipped topping, from Starbuck’s. As I exited the parking garage, I decided to just drive and see where I ended up for the next hour. I found myself in the South Park area and chose to visit a big book store. I’m not much of a book lover, but my husband purchased a Nook on his way out of town yesterday, so I suppose that was making me want to read—so I can have a Nook, too. My favorite kind of book, if I must read one, is true crime, but I didn’t want to just walk into the store and ask for a juicy, scandalous, horrific story of a grisly crime, so I chose to find my own way around the store. Not having a lot of luck, I thought, “Magazines!” The first aisle of magazines obviously appealed to the male audience since that’s all that was on that short aisle. There was a kind of sleazy-looking man on the next aisle and, as I scanned the selections, I noticed that some of the magazines were wrapped and covered, yet I managed to see some scantily-clad women on the covers of some of them. Ick! The man looked at me like he knew I didn’t want that aisle, and I got the feeling that too much time had lapsed between realizing what I was looking at and moving on. On the last aisle, I still didn’t see any stamping or paper crafts magazines, so I walked around to the opposite end of the porn aisle. What a disappointment! There was a TINY section of mixed crafts, and I didn’t see a single stamping magazine! Girls going wild on one end, beading and quilting on the other end. Maybe the store designed this aisle so women and their men could spend quality time on the same aisle, although it appeared that the men have a better selection! Still having a little more time to kill, I decided to look again for that special true crime story. I ventured down one aisle upon eyeing some Nora Roberts books, but guess what was at the other end of that aisle? Yep! All kinds of books about sex, lesbians, gays, and fetishes. Even though I finally saw a label with teensy letters that read, “True Crime,” I thought it was best to just make my way to the front door and get back to my Mocha Frap since I didn’t know (and didn’t want to know) the subjects that might be lurking two shelves over.  Ah, yes . . . good times at the book store. 

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