Yesterday I was looking through the catalogues that came in the newspaper, trying to find some ideas for Christmas presents for people. I love looking through junk mail, particularly the ones for the department stores. Catalogues for supermarkets are dead boring and I don’t even bother. I’m sure there are people who comb those catalogues, squealing with glee that they can save $1.50 per kilo on some skinless chicken breast, but I don’t really care - I can wait until I get to the shop to find that kind of stuff out.

What I want to know is, what cool homewares/gadgets/other stuff I don’t really need can I buy at a discounted price? Not that I usually go out and buy any of it, but it’s fun looking. You see, I hate shopping, but I love looking at stuff I could buy.

So I was looking through the catalogue for one of the department stores, and I found some cutlery for $99, a saving of $200. Bargain. I thought it looked pretty cool, and M liked it as well, so we thought we may as well get a set since the cutlery we have is pretty old. We looked to see when the sale was meant to start, and it said the 28th, so that was cool because it meant we hadn’t missed out on the start of the sale (it’s happened before that this shop has had sales, and we’ve gone to get something, only to find that it was sold out).

We came to work today, and I was wondering when I’d be able to get the cutlery set. I really didn’t want to wait until the weekend, because I had the niggling feeling that they’d be gone by then, and I started getting quite edgy and obsessive, because once I decide I want something, I have to have it RIGHT AWAY in case it’s gone and then I regret not getting it.

So then I thought that I could call into the city after work because I was meeting a friend in town anyway, and I could just go before that. But then I thought, “what if there’s a huge rush on the one set of cutlery I want, and it’s all gone by the end of the day?” So I decided bugger it, I’m going to go now (it was 9:45 am). I told M I was going to go in and get it, and he suggested that I call up first to make sure they have it, and get them to put one aside for me, since it would be a pain if I left work only to find that there weren’t any. That made sense, so I rang to check, but everyone was busy so I got put on hold. I was stressing while I was waiting, thinking that while I was waiting for someone to pick up the phone, people were buying my cutlery.

I hung up and decided to just go into the city anyway. So I caught the bus in, and walked briskly towards the store. I walked in, expecting to see a sea of people all buying their cheap stuff (hey, the sale started TODAY!), but there was practically noone there except for staff. Still, I went to the cutlery section, hoping that the set I wanted was still there, only to find around 20 sets or so, all neatly stacked up. Yes, well. I guess there wasn’t the need to get all stressed, but I just know that if I’d waited until the end of the day, they’d all have been sold. It’s just the way things work.

I bought my cutlery, and lugged it back to work on the bus (why do they make cutlery boxes so huge and difficult to carry?). There hadn’t been an open box in the shop, so I couldn’t see how heavy the individual pieces were, but I figured that for the price, it was still a pretty good buy even if they weren’t fantastic. However, I was pleased to discover that the pieces were quite weighty. When you take into account that I got a 12-person set, with 2 serving spoons, a ladle, a salad spoon and fork and a cake server, all for the bargain price of $99, I think all the stress was worth it.

Now I’m just stressing about all the other stuff in the catalogue that I want to buy (but didn’t get this morning because it would have been too difficult to carry everything). I’m going to go in before I meet my friend today and get it then. It’ll still be there - right? Maybe I should go in now and get it. You know, just to be safe.