Jewelry

[Maxine49]

OK, this one's for you Muse and all my sister Ripkanistas...enjoy....warning--it's another long-winded one...

So New Year's Day, I'm up early showered, dressed, a little makeup and out the door to TJ's to the get the Michele Zebra Rose for a sister Ripkanista. It's a 5 minute drive across the CT River and I get there and the parking lot is desolate...I think, oh no, they are closed! But they are not and I am virtually the only one there. I make a beeline for the watches and all the Micheles I left behind the day before are still there. Whew! I get the Zebra Rose and then, I must confess, I get yet a third Michele for me. It's one I had been thinking about ever since I left there the day before. It's a deco, ivory face with very, very subtle rose etchings and 20 diamonds on the face and 90 diamonds on the bezel and a rose embossed leather strap. It's stunning. I can't leave it behind. It has to come home with me.

While I'm paying for the watches the manager comes over. Now this is a white haired man, not the woman from yesterday. Ok, I give it the old college try (emphasis on the "old"). I tell him the yesterday saga of the defective zebra watch strap and the refusal of the woman "assistant" manager to give me any kind of pricing consideration. He listens patiently. He then gives me the same party line "we will just sent the defective watch back to the manufacturer and get a full credit, we don't have to discount it." Hmmm, I say this makes no sense when you have a willing buyer. Clearly, I am losing my touch---they say when a woman reaches a certain age she becomes invisible to men. I think I must now be a ghost!

I tell him I bought three Micheles yesterday for $2100 and that I am back for two more today for another $1200 for a total of $3300! His eyebrows go up. I say that, unlike what the asst. manager told me, the warranty is no good on the strap and only covers the guts of the watch---not the case, not the crystal---just the internal mechanism. I tell him I read the warranty because as an attorney, I do these ridiculous kind of things. I then whip out my sales receipt and wave it in the old geezer's face and look him square in the eye and lick my Big Buxomed Bare Essentials lips. BINGO! He turns to the sales gal and says "give her a $30 credit." God, I feel cheap....all that for a $30 trick! And I know in my heart of hearts that if I was half the age I'd get twice the credit, at least. Make mental note to myself to investigate Botox for 2011...well that, and a 40 pound weight loss just might make me visible to men again. Here's hoping....

OK, so here's where the story seemingly goes off track. I making out my Christmas cards last week and I cannot find my Christmas card address book. Instead, I dig up an old address book I started 24 years ago--1986. It's tattered, broken spine, pages torn, address crossed out, changed...some people long dead, but I cobble together the addresses I need for the cards. I come across the address of an old friend, Sally, who I met in 1980 and I have not seen since my father's funeral in 1993. She was recently divorced then and was thinking of remarrying. I figure she's long gone, moved away, name changed. I consider sending her a card to see if it comes back, but I move on to other names and forget to go back and send her one. She was a great, funny, smart gal--nine years younger than me---but we were great friends. I strangely think of her again a few days later and then I even think of her ex husband borrowing a book on Chinese history, The Gate of Heavenly Peace, that he never returned to me. I don't know why these thoughts are coming up. Remember this.

Back to the Micheles. I am back home and confess to another Ripkanista that I got yet a third Michele watch. She says send text pic. I do. She says stunning. I say they have another? She says how much? I say $699. She says, yes please. I say I'm on my way. I immediately get in the car and drive back across the river. Whew---the watch is there. Less than 10 minutes after our texting I am paying for the watch. I am laughing and joking with the sales girl---ya kinda nervously do that when you have spent $4000 on 6 Micheles watches in less than 24 hours--combination of embarrassment at your excess and coming down off a shopaholic high! I'm thinking I am the new Lance Armstrong of the Michele de France! But I don't tell her that---she already thinks I'm crazy...and would she even get the reference!

Suddenly someone is rapidly coming toward me at the jewelry counter saying "Sheesh, I'd recognize that voice anywhere!" Yes, yes, yes---you guessed it--it's long lost Sally. In the flesh! She never remarried, she's still in the same house, same phone and same job for 22 years. And I'm in the same home, same phone and same job for 23 years. Amazing! I tell her I've been thinking about her recently--and I think she thinks, yeah, right. I then mention thinking about the ex husband and the book and now she knows I'm sincere 'cause nobody can make that kind of stuff up on the fly---she's knows it's crazy but she knows it's true. We chat, we laugh and make plans to get together, exchange cell phone number--put them right into our phones on the spot. I tell her about living in Paris---we have a lot to catch up on. I am thrilled. We actually talked briefly on the phone this AM.

So you see, if I had not bought that third watch and then gone back to get the exact same watch for my sister Ripkanista, I would never have bumped into Sally. I mean, really, this was preordained shopping and I was merely doing what the universe was compelling me to do. Is that the ultimate shopping rationalization, or what? Keep that in mind the next time you get an uncontrollable urge. I will now call that watch my "Sally Michele."

So, my friends, the 2011 Austerity Plan is now in effect. I have unsubscribed to all emails and reminders from whatever shopping source. I have canceled my Waitlist orders and Autoships. I will carve out any new Q Monacos that might surface and a matching necklace to the Alexander Coin bracelet. But I am done, done, done and will will spend the rest of 2011 enjoying my little piece of Michele watch heaven. I'll be sending those three Michele watches off to my sister Ripkanistas first thing in the AM.

Have a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New year