The closest grocery store to my mom’s house has a kind of boutique vibe to it with lots of extras and giftable specialty-type items. It’s the kind of store you want to browse while you savor all of the eye candy (on top of the all the literal candy). Like the endcap that grabbed my attention today with pleasure-writing-relevant office-type supplies.
A potted “pencil plant” / pen stand caught my eye first:
I love Ikea-ish green plastic plants in general, so I definitely found this tempting, but I don’t like to store my (fountain) pens in a vertical position plus I wanted to look online to compare prices ($20 at the store today, almost half that on Amazon, and more than TWICE that price on Wayfair).
They also had tiny little crinkle-wrapped notebooks made of yellow sticky-notes with different-colored binders: also tempting, but ultimately passed on. I’ve seen a lot of this type of thing, but better-made / less I-won-it-at-the-gradeschool-carnival style.
Then they had about a half-dozen of these different pre-printed to-do-ish sticky notes of a functional size, so I did pick one of them I imagine will be the most helpful / that I actually *need*:
I bought this pad of “DEAL WITH THIS (or you’re fired)” sticky notes from KnockKnockStuff (“Clever Office & Desk Stuff, Gifts & Books”) at the fancy grocery store for $3.99 (plus tax).
Even though the Knock Knock Stuff people appear to be big proponents of the whole “You Got This” fad-encouragement phrase I DETEST, a lot of their pre-printed stuff appeals to me as genuinely useful coach-like tools (just like “you got this” is apparently genuinely useful to a whole shit-ton of folks), and I like their aesthetic. I’m looking forward to browsing their site in private and at my leisure, and buying some things … like this Desktop Inspiration Generator.
I’m not sure I can write the DIG off as a PleasureWriting.com expense unless it counts just by virtue of the fact it is for the “desktop”? Or as a piece of consultation / research material as a writer seeking “inspiration”? That’s not really what appeals to me about it, though; I love the graphic, colorful, flip-book-style magic-eight-ball random gamble of it for focus-suggestion and, again, the aesthetic which is pretty perfect with its starriness for me, PM*.
The biggest pleasure of this sticky-note purchase was actually the shopping experience and what I learned from it; because the endcap catching my attention only had three different pen-and-paper-y office-y products, it was a lot easier for me to pick something to buy.
When there are lots of items, like there were in this amazing store I saw these Kawecos on sale at last week FILLED TO BURSTING with all kinds of pen and pencil and paper and colorful cards etc because that is specifically what they specialize in, I get super-overwhelmed in a way that is pleasurable but intensely overstimulating. It is impossible-feeling to make a *perfect* decision on what to buy so I just wind up walking out of those dreamy stores empty-handed, feeling guilty about how much time I walked around inspecting and TOUCHING their wares without putting a penny in their tills.
I know I am not alone in this problem of being less-able to choose what I desire most (and therefore less-likely to BUY anything at all) when faced with a vast array of extremely wishlistable goodies; I *just* saw a headline and skimmed an article about THIS VERY PHENOMENON (somewhere … I can’t remember, but probably inc or fortune or something like that, or maybe it was a company profile detailing what they did right to succeed) saying that you’re way more likely to make sales when you limit people’s choices to, like, THREE THINGS (exactly the number of products on this pleasure-writey grocery store endcap shelf).
On top of that, those of us who are the market for these types of very detail-oriented micro-manage-y mindfulness-invoking journal-y products are even more likely to be easily-overwhelmed perfectionists who will agonize to the point of paralysis if given hundreds of awesome things to choose from. BUT we are also very likely to investigate the fine print on those packages and go home and spend hours on a business’s website training ourselves to becoming VERY LOYAL CUSTOMERS. I’d say that endcap in the fancy-people grocery store was pretty great ad placement for KnockKnockStuff.com. Getting to handle this one product I am able to see in real life the attention to detail and feel the weight of the stack of notes and its solid thickness (it’s not just a joke product with like 25 sheets … there are 100 sheets like a real stack of post-its).
People who are into fountain pens have a reputation of being very pro-analog, almost (often?) to the point of being proudly-technophobic. Reflecting on my brick-and-mortar stores PLUS internet-based browsing and buying experiences over the past week plus really tickled my signature strengths (Curiosity, Love of Learning, and Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence); I think it’s part of the same fountain pen hobbyist tendencies to very methodically test nibs and inks and document the whole process and SHARE those experiences (and create further documentation and then disseminate it online, and in so doing conduct further testing by engaging with others to compare and contrast experiences). All of this is a perfect combination of tactile analog pleasures and virtual digital internet-based applications, demonstrating the benefits of both of them and how the virtual can augment the analog, and vice-versa.
I love being able to see and touch and experience and be shown things in real life physical stores, but I also love being able to browse and buy online. While I hate how many brick-and-mortar stores have gone out of business (and I think it’s actually spiritually and environmentally crucial that we continue to be able to shop for things in person and gauge their quality with all of our senses engaged), there are a lot of things I would not buy or remember at all if I could not patiently make informed decisions on platforms and in settings where I can peruse a wide selection without distractions, fatigue and pressure.
I actually hope and believe we are going to reprise some old-fashioned high-quality in-person service and shopping (and dining and traveling) experiences from the twentieth-century that can go hand-in-hand with internet shopping and service experiences without being replaced by them. Pandemic initiated *some* of that, but not nearly as much as I’d hoped for, or is called for with the levels of entitled, boorish and even dangerous behavior that’s become normalized on planes, in restaurants, and everywhere consumers are compulsively overspending and returning without any literacy with regard to materials, manufacturing, personal financing, quality, or consequences.
Honestly I think detail-oriented quality-loving analog enthusiasts have vital contributions to make in bringing my vision of bespoke service and private shopping etc. to fruition. I also think this post is full of the kinds of bullshit ruminations typical of fountain pen aficionados: my apologies. In a buttoned-up “sorry not sorry” kind of way.