Picture This

I am HomeGoods yesterday looking at all the bowls and vases and candle holders and glass curios on the shelving that runs down the entire wall of the department, when suddenly the woman working in the department is my best friend, as I ooh and aah about some of the bowls--too pretty to use. I ask my new best friend, “do you have any plate holders?” and she directs me toward one. Now every time I pick up a bowl or a plate I move things around on the shelf to put it in the display holder to see how it looks.

The moment I put an iridescent purple bowl with an intricately detailed design in the plate holder, I have to ask my new best friend, now four feet away, for her opinion. "Isn't this beautiful?," I ask as I step back to admire it. She puts down what she's doing, walks down the aisle, and agrees. "Oh, yeah," she says, "I need to touch it." At that moment she reaches out and puts the lip of the bowl between her fingers. (See? We understand each other. We could definitely be BFFs.)

As she walks back to her price tag cart I say, "I should know better than to come in here! I always find something I just have to have."

"It's such great stuff," she agrees, and smiles at me, which is the equivalent of a longtime BFF saying “go ahead and buy it.” I refer you to the handbag incident last summer.

When I find myself holding a plate holder and two bowls--the purple one and a turquoise one imprinted with flowers (Hello?!?) she comes back to look at that one, too.

I say, "Seriously, I'm afraid that one day I'll hear a knock on my door and I'll open it to find men with a big roll of bubble wrap, there to talk all my bowls and vases away."

She laughs.

I’m serious.