Shop 'til You Drop

Neither my husband nor I like to shop.

Oh, it’s true that on occasion, I have headed purposely into a kitchen store with no purchase in mind, just wanting to see what kind of kitchen gadget I can’t live without. And certainly it’s not unusual for me to head into a book store and look at what’s new in paperback, not intending to purchase. (In fact, I’m sure book store owners must cringe when they see me pull out the little tablet I keep in my purse to write down names of books that I will then either order on line for my Nook or get from the library.)

But the notion of heading to a mall or shopping area to simply wander around for an afternoon is simply beyond my comprehension. And as for shopping the day-after-Christmas sales? Ha! If I bought my Christmas gift wrap or any presents the day after Christmas, by the same time next year I undoubtedly would have either a) forgotten where I put them, or b) forgotten that I bought them in the first place. Sigh.

And my husband is even worse. We shop when we need something.

And we needed a mattress. Or, at least wanted to buy a new mattress to replace the inexpensive one we had hastily bought when we purchased our desert home back in 2010. So Bill did a bit of internet research and found a couple of mattress stores not too far from our house, and we headed off.

We walked into a store called Mattress Outlet. It was quite large, filled with mattress upon mattress, and absolutely devoid of any humans save for one lone salesperson, a 30-something man. He was understandably very glad to see us. “Hello, my name is Rex. Are you in the market for a mattress?” he greeted us.

Let’s take a station break and talk about the name Rex. I like that name. I’m probably partial to the name because Bill’s dad’s name was Rex. But the name means “king” and I think it’s a strong, masculine-sounding name, and it simply appeals to me. But perhaps because I have two nieces who are pregnant, I have been paying more attention to names lately, and I am having a hard time imagining calling a little tiny baby boy Rex. Maybe I’m just used to names like Jason or Justin. Anyway, I took an immediate liking to Rex because he was named Rex.

So, we told Rex what we were looking for – a queen-sized mattress, medium-firm, preferably pillow-topped. He led us to the section of the store where the queen mattresses lived, gave us about a 2-minute talk on the differences in the mattresses, suggested we lie on them to see if we found any of them comfortable. (I must admit, however, that it is quite difficult to determine the comfort of a mattress when it is covered in plastic, but hey, I get why it’s covered in plastic.)

We did so, and left the store shortly thereafter having purchased a mattress and arranged for its delivery that evening. The entire transaction, from the time we walked into the store until we shook Rex’s hand as we left took somewhere around sixteen minutes. I am amused by that. I am sure there are agonizingly careful shoppers who would have gone to four or five stores to check prices, gotten brochures on all of the beds, asked Rex all sorts of questions about how the beds were made and where the beds come from. We, on the other hand, walk into the first store on our list, lie on two different beds, choose one with very little discussion, make the deal and head over to Five Guys for lunch.

Hope we have many good nights of sleep on our new mattress.

Last night I made a delicious meal I pinned from Pinterest. It has no name. It was a winner.

Nameless Shrimp

Melt a stick of butter in a pan. Slice one lemon and layer it on top of the butter. Put down fresh raw shrimp, then sprinkle one pack of dried Italian salad dressing. Put in the oven and bake at 350 for 15 min.

My notes: I used unpeeled large shrimp. The size was good, but I think next time I would peel the shrimp first. They were really messy to peel, what with being covered in that delicious butter and all. I served it with oven-roasted asparagus and crusty French bread which we then dipped in the buttery goodness. It was really good, and soooo quick and easy.