Impulse buys. We’ve all done it. Usually, it’s a bag of potato chips or a candy bar in the grocery store’s checkout line.
What if it’s a 12-foot-tall skeleton with LED eyes?
In my defense it’s easy to impulse buy off the internet, especially when you are bombarded on social media with ads. That’s what happened to me the other night. I was doing my nightly scroll when I came upon an ad from Home Depot.
Every year I see them in the store and every year I stop, look at them longingly, and talk myself out of it. I tell myself a 12-foot skeleton is not only ridiculous but expensive and where would I ever store one past Halloween? Zach always agrees and we move on. I settle for the regular-sized one we dress up every year but deep down I know it’s not enough.
After the purchase was confirmed and I received the email from Home Depot, I realized there was no going back. I had just ordered a 12-foot skeleton.
The next thing on the agenda was telling Zach what I had done. He took it pretty well. He didn’t ask how much it was. I’m pretty sure he didn’t want to know. He did ask where the heck were we going to store a 12-foot skeleton after Halloween? He also jokingly said, “We’d have to build another room for this stupid thing.” I admitted that when I was ordering it, I didn’t even think that far.
Honestly, I didn’t think it through at all and, for a second, I panicked. I grabbed my phone and tried to find the confirmation email and cancel the order. The problem was that I also had a text message telling me that my order would be delivered tomorrow. It was too late.
Actually, I was pretty glad. I got a second wind and suggested to Zach all the places we could store my newfound joy. We could store it under the bed in the guest room, at the art center, in the backyard, in the shed after we got rid of everything else. I also suggested leaving it up year-round and moving it occasionally. I imagined it standing in the backyard looking over the back fence. It could wear a Santa hat at Christmas and stand on the roof of our house. I could convince other people in town to also purchase giant skeletons. We can then join them together in activities. It could be a thing.
That night we both went to bed, I with the knowledge that sometime tomorrow I’d have my 12-foot-tall skeleton.
I got the phone call about 8 am. I was already at work. It was the Home Depot driver—there was a problem with my delivery. I left my office and arrived home to find the driver with a giant box. It wouldn’t fit through my gate.
I’m not sure why I thought that a 12-foot skeleton would fit anywhere other than in a box truck or semi. I’m also not sure why I couldn’t see for myself that we really don’t have any place to store this giant impulse buy.
I instructed the driver to put the box into the back of my truck and waited for him to drive off. I then casually walked over to the truck and climbed into what was left of the back. I looked at the pictures of the skeleton on the outside of the box. It was huge. I smiled. I then saw the pictures of six different settings of glowing LED eyes. I grinned. I jumped down from the back of the truck and got into my car to return to work. I smiled all the way down the road.
I ran into a friend and told her all about my new skeleton. I might have convinced her to buy one, too. I now know why I bought this 12-foot skeleton. It brings me joy, and we all know we could use a lot of that right now.
Happy Halloween and hang in there.
Cassina Farley can be contacted at cassinaandzachfarley@msn.com