Monday, August 09, 2010

A case of olive oil? How long would that last? (The Found Alphabet)

I:

That's a cursive I over there. I took this picture about a month ago, when the Babies! and I went out on a Tuesday night to run some errands, one of which was picking up Sweetie's weekly Tuesday present. That week's present was a gift certificate for a pedicure at a shop at the Rich Mall we hardly ever go to. If you want to see some serious parenting, you should see me take care of two nearly-four-year-old boys while also standing in a nails shop and explaining to the proprietor, who's English is only passable, that I don't want a pedicure, I want a gift certificate for a pedicure.

One of the reasons we rarely go to that mall is not just because everything there is 14 times as expensive as it is outside the Rich Mall, but also because many of the shops there don't really seem to need to exist, period. That includes the shop where I took this picture, the "House of Oils:"

It's [SPOILER ALERT!]
a whole shop devoted to selling kinds of cooking oils.

Sweetie and I sometimes look at small businesses and wonder how they stay open -- how people support themselves running those businesses. This is the classic example of that.
Who makes a special trip to get a special kind of cooking oil? Or am I missing the boat? Is it an impulse buy? Like you're at the mall to get a pedicure, and on a whim think "I need fancier olive oil than I can count on getting at the grocery store," and pick up a case or so?

Prior letters:

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H

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