Friday, March 16, 2007

Ooh. Shiny things.

So I had to work late last night and the boyfriend picked me up from work ’cause he’s nice like that, and we decided to use the waning hours of the evening to buy a brushed stainless steel garbage receptacle to match the brushed stainless steel appliances in the kitchen ’cause our life is rich and full of purpose like that.

I had a gift card in my wallet from the inappropriately punctuated Linens ’n Things, though I had no recollection of where I got it. Some theories involve holiday and/or housewarming gifts. Some theories involve leftover store credit. Some theories involve rifling through an unattended purse on the train. In any case, I was tired of carrying that bulky gift card around like some sleek plastic albatross in my back pocket, and I wanted to exchange it for something useful, like a brushed stainless steel garbage receptacle where I could throw the card away if I didn’t have to cough it up to buy the brushed stainless steel garbage receptacle in the first place. Which is a conundrum I still struggle to wrap my brain around.

In any case, late on a Thursday night is the ideal (read: not crowded with consumers who have interesting things to do on a Thursday night in Chicago) time to shop at inappropriately punctuated retail outlets, and our quest for a brushed stainless steel garbage receptacle quickly became a mission to fill our entire kitchen with brushed stainless steel. By the time we staggered to the register, we were lugging enough metal to build a ship … or at least to melt into a weighty cudgel we could use to beat any divorced and/or philandering politician who doesn’t think we’re good enough for marriage. And I just went on a cruise, so what the hell do I need a ship for?

Here is a list of our final purchases, in order of size:

Paper towel dispenser. The plastic one that came attached to the kitchen cupboard was beneath our dignity, so we replaced it with one so sleek and smart it actually holds the stray end of the towels up against the roll so as not to make our kitchen look like a tenement.

Banana hanger. We’ve always been amused by these things, though they're not as fun as their trashy cousin the banana hammock, which looks tackier but has better iambic rhythm, internal alliteration and … um … other imagery. And though neither of us lets bananas sit around long enough that their mere weight against the countertop causes unappetizing bruises, we wanted a banana hanger of our very own. Besides, it’s a great way to showcase our exotic tastes in produce and thereby clarify for our neighbors which household is in fact the most culturally superior.

Plastic bag holder. After spending a lifetime storing plastic grocery bags inside each other, rendering their retrieval an exercise in frustration and a diminished quality of life, we decided it’s time to elevate our consumer status to the point where we can retrieve plastic bags with the effortless simplicity heretofore known only by the wealthy and the socially important. Like Paris Hilton.

Soap dispenser. There’s actually a perfectly good soap dispenser already built into the sink. But we like clutter on our countertop, and we wanted to reinforce the fact that brushed stainless steel is indisputably the dominant quasi-reflective accent theme in our kitchen. So now we can use one dispenser for dish detergent and one for hand soap. And our lives will be richer and more meaningful for it.

Garbage receptacle. It’s big. It’s round. It has one of those foot pedals to raise the lid and improve our quality of life. And its unmissable presence in our kitchen gives our garbage an air of authority and gravitas.

Two curved shower rods. Technically, these are for the bathrooms, but they’re still stainless steel, they’re still from Missing Apostrophes ’n Things, and they’re exactly what our elfin showers need to give the illusion of space. And they were on sale. ’Nuff said.

And the gift card? I’d clung to the theory it was a gift of some sort, and since our friends are as generous as they are wealthy, I’d clung to the subtheory that it was loaded with money. Like probably $25. Or maybe $28. And when it was swiped against our $210 merchandise total, we discovered that it had saved us a whopping … ten dollars.

Stupid theory. I banish you to our brushed stainless steel garbage receptacle.

No comments: