The Mermaid Store

Today the girls and I ran errands which included a visit to "The mermaid store". We call it the mermaid store but it is really called Sea Things. Lulu, Jojo and I love this place. We visit about once a month and I always let the girls pick out a shell or a small plastic fish to buy. It is never a quick stop as it takes Lucy 15 minutes MINIMUM to make her selection. Meanwhile Josie will be on her fourth version of what she wants.

Lucy loves all the shells and the various paintings, christmas ornaments, and statues of mermaids. Jojo loves the little plastic fish and starfish and more recently has gotten into the shells.

For me it is a total walk down memory lane as it really reminds me of little shops that I would visit with my family whenever we went to the Oregon coast or Olympic peninsula during the summer. Tiny shops packed with shells and turtles made out of shells and plastic dolphins and salt water taffy.

I worry about the shells and wonder if we are contributing to ocean decimation by buying our monthly snail shell. And then I hold out hope that people somewhere are eating these mollusks and that we are basically buying their trash. The truth is somewhere in between.

During today's visit, Lucy took so long to make her pick that I actually shopped. I decided to spend some of my combined Dad/Jim/Barbara birthday money to get a couple pieces of shell jewelry. I picked a super cool shell choker and then I selected a neat silver ring with a big piece of shell. I looked at the ring and read the price tag as $8. When I was checking out the super nice shop lady said, "oh I'm going to give you a deal on this ring. I think it was priced wrong and it has a little stain on it here. I'm going to charge you $28" And I thought "$$28?" And then I saw the full price tag on the counter and it said $48 (the $4 had been wrapped around the back). While there was no way I was going to pay $48, I decided it was worth $28 to me to support our funky local beach store and take home my funky beach ring. I'm not sure how to evaluate the deal though - as a super great bargain - $28 rather than $48 or as a crazy splurge at $28 instead of $8.