This is a love story, really.
It all started in the local antique shop, where I spotted a tea cart with gold starbursts on both shelves. Anyone who knows me and my vintage tastes knows that this is not a good combination because it will take every ounce of willpower to hold me back from purchasing something like this.
I asked the store owner about the cart; she told me that it was $35 and she had gotten a lot of comments on it. However, she was expecting to sell it that weekend when there was a huge craft show going on in town. Stuff like that always flew out the door on craft show weekend.
I could hear the cash in my purse practically screaming to get out as I thought about buying the cart. There was one problem, though: where in the world would I put it? My house was small and I didn’t have any out-of-the-way spaces where I could park a tea cart. I didn’t want my house to be cluttered just because I couldn’t say “no” to a good deal.
But the starbursts — they were calling my name …
Amazingly enough, I didn’t buy the tea cart that day. I walked out of the store and figured that some lucky craft show attendee would snap it up and give it a good home.
The next time I went back, however, the tea cart was still there, this time parked in the back of the store rather than displayed in the front windows. When I mentioned my surprise to Polly, the bird-like woman (with a voice to match) who runs the store, she babbled on about how so many people had commented on that tea cart when they come in the store, but no one had purchased it yet. I lamented to her again how much I loved it but how I didn’t have the room, and she chirped on about how if I didn’t have the room, then I probably shouldn’t get it. Polly was trying to help me out, I’m sure, but she also mentioned that if I wanted it and didn’t have the cash on me, she’d be happy to hold it until I could come back.
Even that offer wasn’t enough to make me cave, and I once again walked out of the store without the tea cart.
Come last May and some nine months after I first saw the tea cart, I had finally decided that I deserved the dang thing. It was waiting for me — I was convinced. It hadn’t found someone to enjoy it, and those gold starbursts were finally to much to resist. I walked into the antique store during a break in semester tests, plunked down $35, and wheeled the tea cart to my car as Polly twittered on about how happy she was that I finally bought it.
So am I, Polly …. so am I.
