Tale of WOE, with allcaps!Liz

[lizbee]

So, I have a meeting at university this afternoon, and I wanted to buy a USB stick while I was there.  I go into the city, and think, "I might steer through Pulp Fiction on the way!  Sure, there's less than a snowball's chance in hell that they have Locked Rooms so soon, and I've decided to put off buying The Hallowed Hunt for another week, but I can stand there and savour the genre novel smell!"

Off I go, through the freezing wasteland that was central Brisbane today.  Into Pulp Fiction.  Where there were a DOZEN copies of Locked Rooms behind the counter.  Special orders, of course.  All sealed up with rubber bands.  And people were BUYING THEM.  Three copies walked out while I was gaping.  And I didn't even have the common sense to mug them!  The rest of the books just sat behind the counter, and mocked me.  They were all lined up next to a book on Daleks, which I can only assume is one of life's dirtier tricks.

So I put my GREAT PAIN behind me, and turned to the science fiction/fantasy half of the store.  Where there is one -- just one -- copy of The Hallowed Hunt left, where last week there were several.  I picked it up to leaf through it -- nothing more, I swear -- when I heard the counter dude talking to his sales rep, who told him that further Bujold hardback imports might be a bit slower over the next few months.

So here I am, holding the last copy of The Hallowed Hunt in Brisbane, and somehow, I found myself standing at the counter, handing over the plastic.  How did that happen?  I can only assume that some kind of possession took place.  I certainly deny ALL responsibility.

I took one lingering look at the special orders behind the counter, but decided that I probably wouldn't be able to jump the counter, brave the Dalek book and get away.  So I made my mournful way down to uni, and attempted to ignore the buyer's remorse which was already descending.

At uni, I wandered through the campus bookstore, admiring the stationery -- I do enjoy good stationery; a good, plain, blue-lined notebook is one of my great joys in life, and I'm afraid that if you give me fancier paper, I just won't use it -- and checking out the price of the USB sticks.  They were significantly cheaper at uni than at any of the computer stores, of course, and I mentally reviewed the money in my bank account, came up with a positive integer, and bought one.  So now I can watch Doctor Who, or at least, I can transfer the raw .rar files to my brother's computer, and we'll see what amusing roadblock appears next. 

Went to the meeting, and came away stuffed full of enthusiasm for my course, and a vague desire to do at least one piece of assessment as a blog.  Bought pies for dinner, hopped on the bus and wondered why my buyer's remorse had now expanded, so it was roughly the size of a small continent. 

Oh yes, I remembered as the bus cleared Taringa, I did groceries this morning, too.  So I had less money in the bank than I'd thought when I bought the USB stick.  And thus less money for the rest of the week.  Bugger, bugger, bugger.

So I'm living on noodles and toast for the next few days.  Oh well, I think, at least I'll be well-entertained.  It was worth it.

Get home.  Share my tale of woe with pieceofalice, who reacts with the usual mixture of sympathy and fear that accompanies these stories, and wonders if I'm feverish.  And then she reminds me of the USB sticks at Officeworks ... which are literally half the price of those at uni. 

Buyer's remorse: roughly equivalent to the size of Europe.

Twitchy desire to cancel life and spend week locked in room, reading: Powerful.

Fever: Rising.

Capslock: ...surprisingly not so much. 

Comments

[zoepaleologa.livejournal.com]

My sympathy. I was minding my own business the other night, the way you do, when I found myself sucked into Waterstones, where I bought a Neil Gaiman book and "Hero with a Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell.

I hate it when bookshops do that, go all "come hither" and blush coyly and simper a lot.

My buyer's remorse lasted until I opened the bottle of wine I bought to deal with the buyer's remorse. Half way down that, I was doing fine. I tell myself there is no price on my intellectual development, so it's not like overspending, not really.

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

I find that, in the long run, I never even remember which books are impulse buys or not. Except for the time I spent the rent on an autographed copy of "The Dreamweaver's Dilemma". But I didn't even regret that when I was working extra shifts as a cleaner to make up for it...

[baggers.livejournal.com]

would it be incredibly stupid of me to advise you return the USB stick, and then go get the one from officeworks?

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

I looked into it, but alas, they only accept returns for faulty goods. Not faulty buyers.

So I'm just sucking it up, hoarding my last ten dollars like Scrooge McDuck, and mediating on the beauty of the words "Plug and Play".

[piecesofalice.livejournal.com]

I hope you're nice and snug in your bed, sleeping off the fever.

I suppose I could go into your room and see for myself...and breathe heavily like That Girl...and touch you...and be generally creepy in all meanings of the word.

:D

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

I am so tempted to kill you in your sleep right now.

[weaverandom.livejournal.com]

Bookshops are evil. Money and lack of same, also, evil.

On the subject of Daleks, I laughed hysterically for quite some time when I read this entry (http://www.livejournal.com/community/milliways_bar/5756501.html) at Milliways, and concluded that the person playing the Last Dalek is a genius or possibly divine and deserves worshipping anyway.

(I am going to have to watch some actual Dr Who canon at some point, I feel. The walls are closing in; there seems to be no escape.)

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

Ah, another fandom I can suck you into! The first three eps of the new series are out on DVD, and I have the next few on my computer. Hope to have the whole thing soon.

*tempts*

[story645.livejournal.com]

Money overspent always comes back in one form or another. *nods* This from a girl who once spent fifty dollars for a skirt and also owns its companion from the same store for five bucks.

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

*snerk*

I do that too.

I'm dreadful with money, though. They say that children from poor families don't know how to save, and in my case it's true. On the other hand, I'm working, I'm on top of all my bills, and if I have to live on noodles for a few days, well, it's my digestive system.

...My mother is hanging over my shoulder, in an imaginary way. Shaking her head at me, no less!

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

You really won't regret the Bujold purchase. It's one of her best.

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to hear that. I always have trouble getting into her novels when I don't know the characters -- I remember being very lukewarm to Komarr when I opened it for the first time and realised we were seeing a stranger's POV. And Chalion seemed very slow-moving at first, although of course, it was obvious once I'd finished that the plot was already in motion.