I Suck At Staples

last night, i went looking for an anniversary present. after all, this sunday is karen and my wedding anniversary. even though it was six years ago, it seems like yesterday that i duped karen into marrying me.

with the exception of last year, karen and i generally exchange gifts based on the traditional theme for the given anniversary year. for example, the traditional gift for the first anniversary is paper. consequently, i got her a gift certificate to a salon, etc.

anyway, the traditional gift for the sixth anniversary is candy/iron. now, as much as i enjoy ferrous ions (iron), i opted for the candy option. after all, karen loves candy. heck, who doesn't love candy and all its sugary goodness?

needless to say, i rather enjoyed finding a present for karen this year. so last night, i went shopping for candy! yum! with the help of my friend (andrea), i was able to buy candy in bulk last night. andrea has a bj's card. previously, i had inquired if andrea would be using her card this week at bj's. as she wasn't, i asked if i could borrow her card with the intention of buying candy... lots and lots of candy. luckily for me, andrea wasn't going to use her card this week at bj's.

i ended up getting karen some of her favorites: a 1.5 lb container of sunkist fruit gems (naturally flavored soft fruit candy) and a box of 72 foil wrapped junior mints (deluxe dark chocolate). oh yes, her tummy will be full of candy come sunday. i'm pretty excited. come to think about it, i probably should have gotten some candy for our little vacation to the cape in july too. oh well, i'll worry about that later on.

anyway, following bj's, i made a little pit stop to staples. for anyone curious, the two stores are pretty close to one another in weymouth. now i suck at staples. (i had originally thought about titling this post "i suck at bj's"... but that just sounded all nasty and wrong.) nevertheless, i don't shop at staples that often. i generally go there to buy blank cds or whatnot.

some time ago on one of my random visits, i joined the staples reward club. for the longest time, i had no idea what the reward club offered. then one day, i inquired about the reward club and was told that one of the rewards involved getting a credit for old ink/toner cartridges.

naturally, i thought that was a great idea because i am a big proponent of recycling things... such as old ink/toner cartridges. the problem: i currently don't have a printer so there is no need for me to recycle old ink/toner cartridges.

luckily, karen told me about how her company lately has had problems recycling their old ink/toner cartridges because they were not receiving the proper materials to ship the old cartridges back to their vendors for recycling. so, karen asked if i would be interested in recycling the cartridges at staples seeing as how i had the reward club card. (for anyone curious, i would be more than happy to help anyone recycle their old ink/toner cartridges.)

thus, last night i brought three ink/toner cartridges from karen's work to staples for recycling after the excursion to bj's. for someone like me who occasionally goes to staples, it made the visit last night worthwhile. as lame as this sounds, i actually felt happy that i was a staples reward club member.