Everything must go.

I was killing time between the airport and a volunteer meeting tonight, and happened upon a Hallmark store that was going out of business. Everything in the store was 40% off. EVERYTHING!!

Ever the bargain hunter, I gleefully shopped for thank-you notes (one can never have enough thank-you notes on hand) and birthday/anniversary/wedding/baby shower cards for the rest of the year. When I got to the counter I asked the guy (who turned out to be the owner) how much longer they'd be open, thinking I could come back, when I had a little more time, and add to my surplus. He said something about not being sure they could last till April, and suddenly I felt very sad for him.* What if this was his dream, and his business was going under, and now he'd have to find some crappy job to sustain himself and his family for the rest of their lives? What did he think of business increasing X% only since he put the "going out of business" sign in the window? What about all those other depressed store owners going out of business whom I'd only visited because at that point they weren't trying to rip me off with their overpriced wares?

And then I recalled a guy I met several years ago who lived in Bali, shipped shitloads of Bali arts and crafts here to sell at ridiculously high prices before Christmas, then reduced prices by 75% after Christmas so that he could get rid of the stock, go back to Bali and live the good life for another 9 months. And I thought, maybe this Hallmark store owner is retiring. Maybe he won the lottery and didn't need the gig anymore. Maybe he was moving out of state. Maybe he was moving to Bali.

And then I thought, what the hell do I care?? I just got 30 thank-you notes and 10 greeting cards for $20!!! Whatever reason your store is going under is sooooooo not my fault, I buy full-priced cards all the time.

In unrelated news, my oldest friend in the world (the one I've known the longest, not my nonexistent 101 year old friend) and her husband are having a baby!!! How exciting for them... How scary for them... And I guess I'll be heading back east sometime in the fall.

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* I got home tonight and found pleas for money from the Sierra Club, Unicef, KQED and the National Parks Association. Four requests in one day is a record, even for me. My train of thought while opening the mail: "Jesus! Sure I'll sign the petition to save the wetlands but you're not getting my check... Why did you send me a real nickel [Editor's note: Unicef really did this]? How guilty would I feel if I kept that nickel? I'll show you, I'm sending it back with NOTHING ELSE except a note saying please take me off your mailing list now quit bugging me!!... Oh, so you see that I've been a loyal member since 2004 and you're grateful for my enduring ongoing support - 12 whopping months does not enduring ongoing make, and anyway, get your facts straight, I've been supporting KQED for about FIVE years now... What if the parks and poor children and independent radio really do need my money more than my savings account does? How does one decide where to share their own personal wealth? OK - how does one who doesn't want to see a payoff decide where to share their own personal wealth? Is it based on values? Because if that's the case I could rationalize how any of these are more important than the other, or equally important, and convince myself to sign the check(s)... Fuck it - you're all getting recycled and I'm buying a dresser instead."

(It may very well be hormones. Or the fact that I've been up since 4:30am today. Or the fact that my current dresser smells like moth balls.)