Monday, October 31, 2011

Impulse Shopping

I have what I think to be a unique "problem".   This problem has to do with color, specifically several colors in "color order" like a color wheel.

I was the child who, when receiving a box of 64 Crayola crayons, rearranged them in "color order" before using them.  And then, I would just look at them because the array of tints made my eyes happy.

I have not changed.  If I am in the Office Supply store and some clever salesperson has arranged printer paper in waves of ascending color against one large wall, I am transfixed and just want to BUY.  Worse, if there are reams of paper that have several shades available in that one package.....I cannot resist.  I have to remind myself that I have more paper than I will ever use, thanks to years of this same issue.  Next, there is the pen and pencil aisle, filled with even more danger. There is always a new company coming out with the ultimate gel pen or felt tip pen or artist's pen, and the packages are arrayed in blankets of surging color that literally call out to me, "Buy Me."  I also have to restrain myself because I have a collection of colored gel, ballpoint and felt tip pens that fills my desk, having given into this urge many times in the past. I've taken to storing them by color, no matter what type or brand they are.  All the greens together, all the blues together - and it makes my eyes dance with joy to look at them.  Write with them?  I'll probably never use them all. 


That's only one store and only one genre of purchase.  As you can imagine, every year at "back to school" time I can't resist buying some of the notebooks with beautiful colored covers when I see them displayed like this:



Then there are clothing stores.....


And stores that sell bath and bedroom supplies:


And sewing and craft stores:





I'm doomed.  So....I also have a bin with all different colors of yarn to make a granny afghan in the old fashioned style, with black edging.  I've gotten maybe 12 squares done in the past 2 years.

And finally, the piece de resistance.....multi colored lights.  Things of bright color that light up too?  It's almost too much.  A few years ago, my mother got me several light up pens for Christmas - their barrels, when a button was pressed, were clear and went through several light color changes.  The decorative solar balls in our back yard glow different colors.  So you can imagine that Christmas is a dangerous time.  There are always some colored lights in our home somewhere, and I don't mean packed up.  For the past 5 years, we have a set of tiny colored lights hung around the top of our living room walls and we put them on every night. 






I'm sure everyone thinks Christmas lights are beautiful, but I think I have some sort of disorder.  Whatever it is, color, especially in "color order" like a rainbow, makes my eyes delerious.  If I'm in any kind of store that displays colors as shown in this blog entry, I'm instantly distracted and I have to stare.  I have a light up keyboard on my computer that glows in 7 different colors - I usually pick purple.  I'm just curious if there is anyone out there with the same level of color insanity???



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