I don’t wholly dislike this:
When I was a kid, my parents would often take me to places that they felt would be interesting and enriching — museums and whatnot. And while I definitely enjoyed the art, what I REALLY loved as a kid was a gift store. MAN, did I love a gift store. A hotel gift store was tied with a museum gift store for pure delight. We went to Hawaii once and I dragged my parents to the hotel gift store every day. I must have spent HOURS in there, looking at things. In particular, I remember being entranced by tiki-themed swizzle sticks. I can’t imagine my parents were that thrilled to chaperone me while I spent forty-five minutes staring at glass wares, but they were very indulgent. This may also be why I own, like, seriously, a lot of glasses. And then there were the museum gift stores, where I spent endless amounts of time looking at fancy, art-themed pens (I still like to buy souvenir writing implements — if they’re selling pens that feature little things floating around in water that move as I write, I WILL BUY THEM) and stationery for all the letters I wasn’t writing but MIGHT write if, say, I were to come across some kind of pen pal situation where I didn’t really have to do that much work. Mostly, I just thought pretty stationery was pretty, and I particularly liked the varieties that came in pretty, pretty boxes, many of which were lined with marbled paper that look JUST LIKE THIS. So I really want to write a letter on her, is what I’m saying. Or perhaps a poem called Ode to Swizzle Sticks.
How do you like it? Weigh in in the comments!
