It was a lovely day Thursday. We went with Kelli D. and her 4 kids and we did a little field trip to Virginia City, Nevada... a major tourist trap about 25 minutes from Reno. This is where they found the Comstock Lode and apparently where Michael Landon worked with his brother Hoss (sp?) everyday on the hit TV show Bonanza.
It was a beautiful day. We found a perfect parking spot and unloaded the masses. Kelli has 4 kids, so we were quite the spectacle. Her kids were on spring break, just as my kids are on an eternal spring break. We hit the visitor's center first and ended up buying tickets to a mine tour. It started in an hour, so we had some time to kill. We decided to mosey down the boardwalk.
After a few blocks, we pressed our runny noses up to the window of this amazing candy store. Barrels and barrels of candy overflowing, a cornucopia of sugary confection...the main attraction being the salt water taffy. We bravely entered the store. And there she was...the librarian in the candy store. I will affectionately call her Gertrude. This is the face she greeted us with when we made our candy store debut.
I felt the warmth seethe out of her laser sharp, Tolkeinesquell-seeing eye as she scanned the little varmints who had just entered her candy kingdom. I felt the warm embrace as I could almost hear her say, "Why the &%$@ did you bring those snot-nosed brats into this hallowed establishment? It is a candy store after all, not Wal-mart!"
The silence was deafening.
And so was Julia... and Harry... and Eli... but especially Julia.
She was helplessly stranded in her stroller with mounds and mounds of candy just within her reach. It was sheer torture. So she decided to torture everyone else and scream her blood-curdling scream.
Harry also started to get whiny, and then bouncy, and then slightly frantic as the candy taunted him from every corner.
I was just busy throwing various taffy flavors into my bucket.
I just didn't realize that Raef was doing the same thing.
I found a few lollipops and shoved it into the babies mouths. I headed for the check-out stand. $4.79 /lb. was kind of expensive, but it was our splurge for the outing.
Gertrude, the librarian, weighed the candy. Then Raef came up with his bucket. I told him to put it back. But there were so many flavors, he didn't know where to put them. So I just threw them onto the scale. It sent it up .08 more. Gertrude had a heart attack.
"How many pieces did you put on the scale?"
"I don't know. 10, 12, 5. I can't remember, but it is was 1.15 and now it is 1.22."
I pointed at the scale readout and barely touched it and the thing fell down. She glared. I told her to charge me whatever she wanted. I didn't care. I was withering under her fatal fatalness. She ended up giving it to me for free. And then I saw the total...$17.75.
What?
It just wasn't adding up in my head. Why did it cost so much? Some salt water taffy, a small $2 bag of sour patches, and a $3.50 bag of root beer candy. $17.75. I asked her what the prices were. She reminded me curtly that she gave me .08 free. Then she surprisingly, got very defensive. I just wanted an explanation of the price.
Ooooohhhhhhh! Salt water taffy is $4.79 for HALF a pound. Right! My bad.
Kelli checked out next. Her total was over $21. Probably because her daughter's lollipop thing cost $3. We left and walked 50 feet from the store. Then the cry...yep, once upon a time a little girl had a $3 lollipop and then she didn't. Dropped. Destroyed. Distraught.
A little while later Kelli broke out a tootsie roll.
And it went SNAP!
2 comments:
Wow. I wonder if she's related to the woman I had to deal with at Hobby Lobby.
What a pooper of a lady!!! What's she expecting with a CANDY store?! It's every kid's dream and delight! She should go BACK to the library and study sales approaches.
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