What do you get for a man who has everything?

I found myself in this boat recently.  You see, my husband and I have run our own business for a number of years, and we have reached the point where we don’t need to worry about money so much anymore.

This period in our life has been good for money and we have finally reached the point where we could buy pretty much whatever we wanted.  Once we reached that point, we went a little crazy and bought pretty much whatever we wanted.

But now, when I want to buy him a gift, I just don’t know what to get him.  I am going to get him some mens jewelry because he doesn’t have any.  There are a few rings that I have seen while on trips to the store, so I think that I will get him one of those. I just hope that he will like it (and wear it).

The one thing that I found out after being married that I would become a designated shopper.  You see, there were a few things that my wife didn’t like to buy in the store.  She said that when she would go to the store to buy feminine hygiene products and bras that the other shoppers would look at her funny.

Since she told me how she felt, I have felt obligated to help spare her the embarrassment.  Though sometimes I feel like the one that is embarrassed.  Take for example the time that I bought stockings for her - it felt like everyone in the store was staring at me.

What I have noticed though is that there are many men that go shopping for their wives.  If you don’t believe me, you should take a look at the shoppers at a drug store - then you will know what I mean.

But, I do the shopping for my wife because I love her.

My father has run a shoe store for my whole life.  Yes, I grew up selling shoes from an early age and learned the need for good quality shoes to ensure good foot and back health.  In fact, most of my father’s customers have been regulars of the store for years because of his knack for matching the right shoe to the right foot.

Part of the reason for his success is due to the attention that he pays to the customer as well as the quality of his shoes thanks to the shoe storage units that he uses.  By paying attention to the shoe storage, his shoes are always new and “fresh” and that is something that his customers enjoy.

He has even filed a patent for the proprietary shoe storage unit that he has designed and has considered mass marketing them once his patent application has been approved.  It is his innovation and attention to the customer that has made me the businessman that I am today.

I went out today thinking that I would come home with a new paintball gun.  I figured it’d be something that would be just easy enough to pick out, buy, and take home with me.  Obviously, I didn’t know what I was talking about.

Once I got to the store, I went to the section where they sold paintball guns.  I figure that there’d only be one or two different kinds and it would take only a couple minutes to make a quick decision of which one to buy. 

Boy was I wrong.

After nearly half an hour of looking at package after package, I just really didn’t know which one would be the best one.  There didn’t seem to be any staff around, so I decided that I would go home and take a look online and make my decision from there.

Who knew that it would take so much work to choose the right paintball gun.

I went to an auction sale today for miscellaneous items.  You see, they were auctioning off items that were on trailers of trucks that were in accidents.

For some of those items, the damage was minimal.  A scuff on a couch, a dent on the side of the fridge and other minor damage.  Typically, these items went for close to their selling price, but there were still bargains to be found.

There was one lot that really caught my eye.  You see, they had a lot of Rubber tracks for Bobcat mini excavators that we could use at our business.  The opening bid was really low compared to the retail (and even wholesale) price, so I decided to bid.

There was a short bidding war between me and another gentleman, but in the end, I won.  The price that I paid was well below the price on the market, so it made my day.

I have a small chain of retail stores that we are looking to buy computers for.  Our current machines are so outdated and slow that we need to do something to keep up with the increase in the number of customers our company receives on a daily basis.

But, we are not looking for some clunky, large computer to take the place of our old machines.  Rather, we are looking for some type of small computer to fill the void that will be created when we get rid of the old machines.  It would just be nice to have something that is a little more quiet and that can be hidden so that no one thinks of stealing it.

While expressing our interests to the computer sales clerk, he suggested that we should buy computers with Shuttle PC cases.  They are both small and quiet and would be a good fit for our company.

We promptly ordered twenty and will have to wait a week for them to be completed, but I feel very good about the purchase.  It will be great to see the old ones go.

Once per month, I go out shopping to replace my office supplies.  The fact of the matter is that my business consumes paper, pens, and a couple of printer toners each month.  By having extras on hand I don’t need to interrupt my workday by making an emergency shopping trip to replace what I need.

Unfortunately for me, as I pulled up to the office supplies store I noticed something different - the store had shut down.  Reading the sign on the window, I guess they had gone bankrupt two weeks ago, liquidated their inventory, and shut the doors for good.

Thankfully, I have a small business directory in my car, so I looked through it to find the next closest office supplies store.  I picked up the supplies I needed including some other hardware products, and went home.  Though most of my day has been wasted, at least now I should be good for the next month.

I’ll be honest here: I love the outdoors but I hate bugs.  I especially hate it when you get Mosquito bites after venturing outside for a few minutes to take out the trash.  We have tried using bug zappers, but they have never really given us the results that we were looking for.

While I was at the store today, I took a look in the seasonal department to see if they had developed anything new to combat bugs.  I wasn’t expecting a bug flamethrower by any means, but I did want something that would work.

What I found was a Mosquito trap that they had on sale.  All you had to do is plug it in, and the trap would do the rest.

I have purchased a couple and will be setting them up in my yard tomorrow.  I feel that it would be best to get a head start on removing the mosquitoes as soon as possible.  Who knows, I might actually get to enjoy my summer this year.

For many years I have used one brand of cologne: Ambercrombie cologne.  It has been my “trademark” smell for many years now, and most people would recognize it when I walk into a room.  But, I was greeted with some bad news yesterday when I ran out – they don’t make it anymore.

I felt like someone died.

Seriously, I find that it takes a long time to find a smell that is definitely you.  The worst part is the smell you breathe in from the bottle is different than it would be if you were wearing it.

So, I am going out today with a few good friends in an attempt to find a new smell that is distinctly me.  I have a feeling that it might take a few trips to find the perfect fit.  I just hope that I don’t run into this situation again for a long time – I have a feeling that this will be one of the hardest decisions I will have to make.

My only errand for today was to go to the local pet store and look at pet carriers.  You see, we’re going on a long trip and a couple of weeks and instead of leaving our pets at home, we are taking them with us.  We also thought that it would be smarter to have our two dogs in carriers so they don’t cause any disturbances while on our drive.

Usually when I go shopping, I go right to the item that I intend on buying, pick it up, and take it to the till.  I don’t know why, but I decided to wander the pet store today.

That was my first mistake.

I found myself looking at dog toys and accessories for my two puppies.  They had some new toys that I had never seen before and I decided that I needed them.  I threw them in the shopping cart and continued to look through the store.

That was my second mistake.

By the time I was done shopping, my shopping cart was full of dog food, toys, a Nylabone or two, and the total at the till was just plain ridiculous.  In the future, I will not pick up a cart nor take the time to shop around at the pet store.