Shopping

Both Sunday, and today, have been full of purchasing things at low, low prices. Some low prices are deals, some are not.

I paid a little under $2 for this can of squid. I'll never eat it, but it's hard to come by a conversation piece as fetching as this one for under $5 in today's high priced markets.



I'd like to make sure I point out that the squid is canned in "natural ink" and it's of "Fancy Quality." There's quality squid, and then there's Fancy Quality squid. Do people drink the juice like with they do with canned peaches?

Also purchased on Sunday were a stack of very nice plates, a handsome file cabinet, and a toaster oven for a total of $11. All three were purchased at a garage sale where they were also selling, among other things, a culture incubator. We asked what one does with a culture incubator and the woman said, "Jeff works in biotech, but not with anything dangerous, and he brought it home one day from the office. I guess you use it to incubate ... um ..."

"Cultures?" we asked.

"Yes, cultures." she said.

Today, after hearing about how beef stew was the easiest thing ever to make and that once it's made it lasts for a week, I went in search of a crock-pot. I found one for sale in San Mateo for a mere $3. The ad said:

RIVAL CROCKPOT -Works. Used. Has hard water stain. Don’t know how to clean it.

I drove down to San Mateo and rang the crock-pot lady's bell. She came down and handed it to me in a paper bag, and I gave her my $3. With money in hand she inquired, "What are you going to use it for ... out of curiosity?"

What I wanted to say was, "to incubated cultures. The culture incubator at the other garage sale was too much, but I think this will work just as well."

What I actually said was, "um. To cook stuff."

She thoughtfully replied, "He he he. Is it because you are single? Is that why?"

"Um. Yeah. And I want to make beef stew."

With the small talk out of the way I took my new crock-pot home and took a closer look at the hard water stain. As a former metalworker, I can tell you with some certainty that this hard water stain would, by most people, be called rust. It seems the delightful lady who sold it to me scrubbed the sides of the pot down to raw steel. Unfortunately, with gas at $2.65 a gallon, it isn't worth driving back there to get my money back. So I suppose it's time to see if somebody on Craigslist would like a slightly rusty crock-pot for, say, $5.

Here's to shopping.