I went on a bit of a road trip today with Matt and Dave. Lately Matt has been working on the off-line retail aspect of the business, and trying to get the store to really grow and not just be a "front" as I like to call it. See, in order to be a retailer of a lot of the products he wants to sell online, he has to have a"brick and mortar" location, or in other words, he needs to have a physical store in the off-line world as well. The hobby world is sorely behind when it comes to the future of the retail industry, and how much of it has shifted to the online market, and they're extremely wary and unsupportive of people who only sell online. They feel like they're being gypped somehow.
So anyway, Matt rented out some space in his building and dressed the club up to look like a store so that he could get a trade licence with all these different companies, but really he makes his money online.
Then recently he decided that instead on breaking even with the extra rented space he decided to make something of it and work to get it off the ground and to establish the business here in our little city. One of the ways he decided to do this was to drive around to all the stores like it within a 1-2 hour radius of here to get ideas and see how they did things (I mentioned this in the last post I think.)
It was, surprisingly, a lot of fun! Granted, I didn't go in to many of the store. In fact, I only went in to the first two which were Games Workshop (in a mall, so hurrah!) and Ikea. Other than that I just stayed in the car reading my new book which I am enjoying GREATLY (more to come later.) It was nice though. Matt asked, "Are you disappointed about the day, because you decided to just stay in the car and read?" and I told him I absolutely was not, because I would never feel so good about myself if I sat at HOME and read all day, but in the car it was a different story. It was nice to be out, to zone in and out of Matt and Dave's conversations at the most ridiculous times, and to not have so many things to do that I can't choose one and so don't do any (I work like that sometimes, much to my detriment.)
Here's something that sucked about the day but turned out pretty nicely in the end: when I got out of the car at the first stop we made, I took two steps and my flip flop broke. I was pretty excited about wearing flip flops in November, but at that moment I was insta-angry. Mostly because these sandals have been my lifeline lately, and I just didn't know what to do. As most of you probably know, it is **impossible** to walk with a broken flip flop. But I couldn't just take it off because, being mid-November, the ground is pretty darn cold (and dirty, and I'm a girly-girl), so there I was, dragging my foot like some gimp just to keep the shoe underneath my foot. And all Matt and Dave could do was laugh at how ridiculous I looked! It was rather funny though, I must admit. It didn't help that Matt parked at the wrong end of the mall, and I had to walk the whole length of it before we could get to Games Workshop, and the Payless across the hall from it.
But it worked out in the end, because Payless was having a buy 1 get 1 half off sale, so I bought a pair of brown clogs (9 1/2...not impressed! But apparently I can look forward to that from now on. It's better than the 10 that I bought a few weeks ago. And really, it's not such a bad thing. So my shoe size changes. So what?) and I also bought a pair of cute black flats for church, which were 9W. Matthew teased me about buying 2 pairs, but it made sense really, because I wore these flip flops to church (irreverent, I know! Hahaha) and now they're gone. SAD!
Other than that, the day was uneventful. Oh wait, not completely uneventful. How can I post about our road trip without posting about the woman who was hitting on Matt and Dave so hard that I was a little alarmed??? I wasn't actually there, but they were laughing for a good 10 minutes after they left the store. Here's how it happened. Owner of the store is an older woman (not OLD, just oldER. Than us. Like late 40's maybe) and she's clearly a bit of a cougar (**aside** why do we call woman who like younger guys cougars? Do female cougars always mate with younger male cougars? I wanna know.) Dave said something looked cool, and that automatically meant he wanted to buy it (right??) so she kept pushing it on him and decided to get it down to show him, only she couldn't reach it, so Matt being tall offered to get it, but it was harder than just grabbing it down because it was attached to the wall (it was a 300 shield, like from the movie), so she offered to get the ladder to make it easier, and while Matt was on his way up, she decided it would be helpful to hold him up by his butt. Like, both hands, there on his butt. I think she just wanted to give it a squeeze and was looking for a reason! I can imagine he went pretty beet red and didn't know what to do. When she offered to hold him steady again on the way down, he politely declined (good man! hahaa).
So that was about the funniest part of the day.
So, this book I'm reading. It's called City of Bones and it's the first in the Mortal Instruments trilogy. I'm quite enjoying it, and I'm excited because it's the sort of book that I'd stay up until 2am reading. I haven't had one of those in a long time. I think a year probably. Has anyone else ever heard of it? The premise of it is basically this ordinary girl discovering a group of demon hunters and realizing after her mom is kidnapped that she has a lot she needs to learn about her past. I don't know how else to describe it without giving stuff away, but it's good. It also involves things like vampires, werewolves, faeries, warlocks and witches, and other cool things which, written in the right context, can be interesting. I'm not quite at the end, so I won't *fully* recommend it (in fact, I won't until I'm done the trilogy, and then I'll let you know) but suffice it to say I enjoy it muchly!
Not much else is going on. Last night I went to a dessert party at my mother-in-law's, and I got a little frustrated about something while there (brace yourself. It's...pregnancy related! You guessed it, I'm sure.) He's the thing. I have heard SO many bad pregnancy and childbirth stories. They seem to be the only ones worth telling. But they can hardly be the norm, or else people wouldn't want to have kids, or wouldn't want more than one, at least according to how horrible some of the stories I've heard have been.
But why don't people ever tell GOOD pregnancy and childbirth stories? Especially to pregnant women who have never been through the ideal? Why is it everyone's knee-jerk reaction to warn you of impending doom and gloom, and if it turns out better, then you got lucky?
Do you know what I want? I want to hear about uncomplicated labour and delivery stories. I don't mean the ones where labour lasts 45 minutes. That seems unrealistic to hope for, especially because those stories aren't usually from first babies. I don't mind hearing about 5, 10, 15 hours of labour. That all sounds quite manageable. I just don't want to hear any more of the negative stuff. It seems I'm surrounded by it.
And the most maddening part of it all is that people talk to you with this superiority, like because they've gone through something, you'll go through it and end up feeling the same way they do about it in the end. And you can't prove them wrong. Not in the middle of the conversation anyway...you have to wait until you've experienced it too. Like, you can tell someone you plan on breastfeeding for a year, and they'll come back and say that you'll think differently once the baby starts teething. Then you say you think the soother should be done with by the time they're a year or two, and you get, "just wait until they're screaming and crying and you're going crazy. You'll pass it over to them then."
I have other examples, I just don't have the energy to rant about them all right now. And you know what? I don't even care if these people are right in the end. I just care that they're telling me how it's going to be, as if I don't have a choice or say in the matter, and like they're some experts and I'm just some inexperienced pup who doesn't know any better and needs to be warned.
Am I prideful? Sometimes I feel like I am. I know that if I'm having a problem I'd *love* for someone with more experience on it than me to give me advice. But not until I ask for it, I guess, and not in such a way that leaves no room for discussion or debate. GRR.
Anyway, I'm not really as worked up as I might sound. Just irritated a bit, I guess.
I'm going to sign off here and finish my book. I think I have 50 pages left and it's at a rather exciting part! I'll let you know my overall conclusion soon (maybe too soon....probably by Monday, but if I get obsessive, by Saturday. I still have 2 more books to read after all!
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