The Bargain Shopper

Vince is the most amazing bargain shopper. Some days I just look at him and think . . there has to be some kind of radar in your head because no one can find the bargains you find!

Now that we’re living almost full time in the basement for several reasons – (1) It’s much quieter and MUCH cooler in the basement; (2) Oscar does not need to be on carpet and wood floors. It’s easier to keep him on tile floors in the basement; (3) It’s so much easier to take the dogs out from the basement. I walk out the living room door, into the downstairs garage and out into the back yard. Also, my garden is about 10 feet from the back door. Upstairs, if we go out the front door, we have to go down two steps. If we go through the kitchen and through the laundry room and through the garage, we also have to go down two steps. (4) When we come in from downstairs, we walk through the door into the garage, then walk through the garage, then through another door so hopefully that lets less bugs in than if we were opening the front door directly to the outside.

I don’t even know why I told you all that because the rest of this post has nothing to do with what we bought but I’ve typed it so I’m leaving it.

We had already been to town once yesterday morning so I felt sure we were home for the day. About 2:30, Vince looked at me and said “You’ve been so good today (huh??), I’m going to take you to the sushi food truck!” I love food trucks! I told him they didn’t open til 4:30. Of course, he had an alternative motive for taking me to the food truck. He wanted to go by the Habitat Rehome store because he wants a table for next to his chair.

Oh! That’s why I told you about the basement! OK . . he has a small table next to his chair upstairs but he doesn’t have one downstairs. He plays games on his computer and needs a real mouse . . not a real, live mouse but not the little mouspad that’s on the tablet. So, he needs a table by his chair. He’s been using a Rubbermaid tote with one of my Omnigrid cutting boards on top of it. The problem is that the cutting board is way too big for the top of the tote and every time I walk by it, I bump it which either screws up his game, almost knocks over a drink or worse.

I agreed that if he was in the mood to buy a table, that was a good thing. On the way to the Rehome store, he abruptly turned into another parking lot. I’ve forgotten what the place was called but it’s another overstock type store but mostly clothes, shoes, rugs, sheets, shower curtains and things like that. They had a table outside with everything marked 40% off. I saw this dog ramp.

I looked it up on Amazon and it was $70+. I was reading the review to Vince. They weren’t great but at this store, it was $18. Vince said “For that price, I can fix anything that breaks, I can make it more sturdy if it seems too flimsy.” So, we got it. Oscar still doesn’t have carpet privileges. If he’s just gone outside and done all his business, then he can come onto the carpet and play for a while. I do believe he’s getting better and hopefully soon he can have access to the living room and then, he’ll be getting on the sofa, despite my wishes that he would not. If he will learn to use a ramp and not jump, that will be good. If not, I’m not sure what we’ll do.

Then Vince found this stovetop waffle maker. I think he’s getting desperate for homemade waffles for breakfast because I have a nice electric waffle maker. He bought another one at the pallet store and he wanted to buy this one yesterday.

I said “It would be nice because if the power is off, we could make waffles on the stove”. Then I looked at the price and it was $26. It was brand new but . . it’s not even electric. I said “No! I’m not paying $26 for that!” Vince said “Look it up on Amazon.” I did and it was $70 on Amazon so . . $26 looked like a deal. We bought that. Last night I stirred up the overnight sponge to make King Arthur’s Classic Sourdough Pancakes or Waffles. We love that recipe! Headed upstairs now to get that going. I’ll have a happy husband!

He did find a table/stand that he liked and it will work next to his chair. It was at the Restore so we got that also.

We weren’t done shopping and they announced it was 5 minutes til closing time. We thought they closed at 5 but they closed at 4 and since the sushi food truck didn’t open til 4:30 I didn’t get my food truck food after all! I’m sure Vince will want to go somewhere else soon and we’ll get food from there.