Impulse Buys
21 July, 2022
We all make ’em. C’mon, admit it. Every so often, you pick up or order something. It might be something small, something not-so-small. But chances are you really don’t need it. Or, occasionally, you don’t really want it.
I’ve done that. Case in point: just before a recent birthday (yes, one of mine), I was rewatching an episode of Better Call Saul. In that episode, titled “Quite a Ride”, there’s a scene in which a German engineer pulls out a notebook and a mechanical pencil to make a sketch and do some calculations.
That pencil drew my attention immediately. Now, I’m not one to obsess over writing implements but from the moment I caught sight of of that pencil, I knew I had to have one. The problem was that I didn’t know what kind of pencil it was. Using a bit of deduction, based on the details I could make out, and a little search kung fu, I soon learned that pencil was a rOtring 600.
Within minutes, I found a shop in Wellington, New Zealand that sells them and placed my order. The pencil arrived a couple of days later and was even more impressive — cast from silver metal, solid yet light, with a distinctive red logo.
Even though that pencil was an impulse buy, it didn’t get shoved into a drawer and I didn’t have any remorse about buying it. I use the pencil regularly and am very happy with it.
So maybe some impulse buys aren’t all that bad ...