Gotta love a bargain.

I was kind and agreed to bring Ant's friend along on errands.  We dropped off the recycle stuff, looked at Big Lots for tracing paper, and hit up Harbor Freight for their coupon deal.  I dug through my supply and found a free book coupon for each kid at the used bookstore.  We hit the dollar store for a cheap leash for my book project and I let the boys each have a toy.  We checked out five thrift stores before we found what Ant was looking for: roller skates.  He's been going to this weekly kid night thing at the skating rink as often as possible and the skate rental is $5.  That's not bad, but it's $12.50 just to get in.  We hoped to find him skates but Chris insisted that thrift stores would be a waste of time so we checked out the sporting goods stores, Target, and Toys R Us.  The cheapest pair we found in town were $30.  He'd have to go six more times just to break even and it's hard to predict what a twelve year old is going to like in that time.  Those pairs were shit anyway, so it would be $50 to find anything halfway decent.  I'm not buying $50 skates.  We told him anything we'd buy would be worse than what they rent, but to that we got a "Nuh-uh!"  Ant is convinced that those are bad skates because "They're so ugly!"  We had already discussed why bowling shoes are ugly but he hadn't made the connection.

Yeah, so I was looking at books in the Easter Seals thrift store when Ant came rolling by.  The skates had no tag so he went to ask.  $4.59.  Um, yeah, we'll take 'em.  What was that, Chris?  Uh-huh.  :D  Unlikely does not mean impossible.

At the bookstore I picked up a flier of their sales for the month.  Next Saturday is a free balloon animal workshop.  Imagine that noise.  Hee hee.  Let me bring my chalkboard and maybe scrape my fork against my teeth while I'm at it.  But yes, I plan to bring Ant.  Maybe his friend too.

I'm home now and the boys are out playing.  I'm not being a chore Nazi this weekend.  Maybe it's because I'm exhausted, maybe I'm taking it easy on him because he's been in Topaz a while.  Who knows.  I'm going to go eat some cheese and crackers.