Hammocks and Impuse Shopping - An American Tradition

Any trip to the store - grocery, convenience, Big Box - I go armed with a shopping list. Still, one or two impulse buys usually fills my cart. Especially when Abe comes with me. Either because the ensuing discussion (justification) makes me take more notice or because Abe is particularly averse to shopping, and a bonus gift or two soothes his nerves.

When we were first married, he convinced me to buy a small "camp mirror" for its versatile features, such as a reflective surface, wall-hanging device, and trifold stand. It slices! It dices! It sat comfortably in the bathroom cupboard for several years, and still does.

Another early purchase was a 50-pack of cable ties (small plastic bands that wrap around cords to keep them in place - think heavy duty bag ties). I remember playing with a few of them to figure out how they worked. At one point I think we used one to actually tie up a cable.

A few months ago we got a small tub of colored foam shapes. Abe wanted to use them for game pieces (he is a board game hobbyist). We sat on the living room floor one night and sorted them by shape and color. I made geometric designs on the floor, and then we put them into the box, layered in rainbow fashion.

Impulse buys have unexpected staying power. The cable ties? Still in the original package. I just counted - there are 32 left. Even things we've never used, we tend to hang on to longer than things we've never used but deliberately bought. A few years ago we bought a hammock on a whim in Mexico. $10. Unfortunately, we couldn't find a place to hang it in our basement apartment, or in our 2nd story apartment after that, or the apartment after that.

Yesterday, while cleaning out the closet, I pulled out the hammock and brought it out to our screened-in porch. Abe and I hemmed and hawed about how to string it from the rafters, came up with a viable plan, realized we didn't have any rope, went to the store and bought rope, came home to discover there was no way to hang the rope from the rafters, and tucked the hammock back in the closet.

Maybe in 5 more years we'll find 2 trees.

The hammock will still be around. Probably the rope, too.