Why I'm not getting anything good from Santa this year


Last Friday, Nate and I were picking up a few gifts and gift certificates at a local mall. As we were leaving, I took a sample of Sarah Jessica Parker's perfume Lovely. I read a profile about it in the New York Times Magazine a few weeks back and the creation of the perfume sounded interesting and the scent sounded like one I would like. I sniffed the sample as we walked through the store.

Lovely confused me. I really liked the first bouquet (or note or whatever you call the first sniff of a perfume) but it had a strange after-scent/undertone I didn't like. As Nate held the door for me to walk into the parking lot, I figured out why I didn't like it.

"It smells like old lady," I told Nate.

A couple of details.

1. Nate had no idea what I was talking about, since we had no conversation about the perfume prior to me blurting out, "It smells like old lady."

and

2. There was an elderly woman near the door who gave me the stink eye. Apparently she thought I was talking about her as I blurted out, "It smells like old lady."

But that's not why I'm not going to get anything good from Santa.

Instead of apologzing or telling the woman I was talking about the perfume, all I could think about is how often I put my foot in it unintentionally, and I started laughing. I'm sure the woman thought I was laughing at her.

That's why I'm not going to get anything good from Santa. For the record, yes, I'm an idiot. And yes, I'm prone to uncontrollable fits of giggles sometimes.

Here is another story to demonstrate my foolishness.

Last summer I bought myself a birthday present, a Namiki Vanishing Point pen. I have four fountain pens. I'm a newbie to the pen collecting world. I started with cartridges and progressed to bottled inks and converters. Until I got my Vanishing Point.

All of my other converters have clear barrels so you can see how much ink you've drawn in. Namikis (or maybe just vanishing points) have a silver barrel converter. So you can't see how much ink you've pulled in. So I would think I'd filled the converter, start writing, and run out of ink a few lines later. Annoying. So I decided to switch to cartridges for just this pen. A few days ago I placed an order for several colors of ink cartridges.

Now I can't figure out how to remove the nib from the converter. All of my other pens have a very obvious point where the nib connects to the converter and you just pull them apart. With the vanishing point I think I know where they connect, but I've tried twisting and pulling and haven't been able to get them separated. Annoying. Especially since my ink cartridges should arrive on Friday.

The store where I bought my pen is now, sadly, out of business so I can't call to ask. I'm going to examine my pen again tonight and see if a little holiday magic will help me figure out how to solve this probably obvious (to everyone else) solution.

I know I'm lucky that my "problem" right now is trying to figure out how in the hell to use my expensive (for me) pen. But remember: I'm not getting anything good from Santa this year.