Mr. Green Hair

Not to be confused with Mr. Green Jeans, I spied Mr. Green Hair the other night at Borders (yes, the one I can walk to). He was single-handedly manning the customer service desk.

An Asian man walked into the store and right up to Mr. Green Hair. The man explained that his wife had called in, and he was there to pick up the books she had ordered. The conversation went something like this:

MGH: Uh, yah. I was having a hard time hearing your wife. So, can you tell me what books she wanted?

AM: (Hands him a piece of paper.) Here are the names of the books.

MGH: Good. Cause I have to admit it has been kind of busy, so I haven't had time to look up the one I could understand. (Goes to computer and looks up books.)

AM: Oh.

MGH: Ut oh. Doesn't look like we have any of these titles in the store. I can order them, but it will take two weeks.

AM: Okay.

Don't get me wrong, Mr. Green Hair was polite. And I really don't mean to focus on his hair, but the lime green color did rather stand out. Afterall, the man didn't go away angry. (I suppose he might just have been shocked or fearful of how his wife was going to react when he returned home empty handed. Or maybe he was just mesmerized by that hair.)

I Can Walk to the Gap

When I say that out loud it is scary. I can be to a Gap store (among several others) in less than 10 minutes just by moving one foot in front of the other. I can walk to the Gap and a Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids, J. Jill, Talbots, The Body Shop, The Apple Store (more on that later), Barnes and Noble (okay, I could already be to a Borders in under 5 minutes, and it didn't seem to bother me this much), and others.

Today is Buy Nothing Day. It started back in the 80's to get us to stop and think about our conspicuous consumption. Remind us that the more we buy the closer we come to destroying the planet, Earth -- you know the place we call home. A woman on NPR today talked about some of the statistics. Things like the average couple spends less than 12 minutes a day talking to one another. That we spend more time shopping each year than playing with our kids. And that most of us having paid off the bills from last year's Christmas presents. She urged listeners to go out to a cafe, talk to people, relax, and have fun. Sounds good to me.

Although that's not what I did. I shuffled my feet over to that new Apple store. They were having a big late night shopping event. There once again was a line outside the door. We waited over half an hour, just to get in and STAND IN ANOTHER LINE!

Of course, along with our cool Apple bag came a roll of wrapping paper (designed by one of their crafty staff), a mouse pad, and a set of magnets. Was it worth it? Probably not. But it was an experience. I think I got a little high off the fumes from the computers.