Platter patter

Do y'all have World Market? Do you get the emails? It's Cost Plus World Market out west, I think. Anyway, I love World Market, and I love their email flyers. I look at them every day. It's like eye candy. I hardly ever manage to get over to the actual store because it's in Turkey Creek and that area's traffic is completely insane, but when I do -- mm, mm, mm. So many pretty things.

So yesterday I opened the daily email, and there was a giant coupon. "Flash Sale! 3 Hours Only! Today, 11/20/13, 5 to 8 pm!!!! CERAMIC TURKEY PLATTERS $6.99!!!! (*Limit 2!)"

OK, I added a few exclamation points. But they had two white ceramic platters, one plain, and one with an embossed leaf pattern around the rim. For $6.99. That's seven bucks. I had seven bucks. And I neeeeeeeeed platters. I'm always thinking, "I need to get to Kohl's when the Fiesta's on sale and get some more platters."

I forwarded that World Market flyer to Wesley and said, "Let's stop there after we pick up Doris!"

See, Doris got groomed at Petsmart yesterday. Her appointment was for 1:30, and Woodrow took her there while he was running errands. Doris would not be ready until 5:00 or so, so we were going to be in Turkey Creek (battling the traffic) anyway.

Wesley said yes, and I said yay, and then I just had to wait for the end of the day to roll around. All day, I congratulated myself on being sooooooo smart.

Platter! Woo hoo!

Four-thirty finally arrived, and I left work and went to pick up Wesley. The sun is awful these days when we get off work; I'm driving directly into the setting sun and it's so hard to see anything; it's an absolute hazard. 

[I should probably stop somewhere and have a cocktail and wait until the sun is down... right?  ;)  ] 

We got down the road a little bit -- Middlebrook Pike parallels the interstate -- and the traffic came to standstill. Eek. I inched forward for about fifteen minutes and finally got to the next cross section through the median, and I turned around and went the other way. I took a back road over to Kingston Pike, another artery that parallels the interstate, but on the *other* side of the interstate. As we crossed the interstate, the poor thing looked like a parking lot -- it was a sea of stopped cars. Another eek!

Kingston Pike was fine for about five blocks, and then it, too, stopped.

So -- to clarify -- it should take me twenty minutes to get from my office to Petsmart in West Knoxville if I go straight there on the interstate. If I stop and pick up Wesley, it should take me about 30 to 35 minutes, depending on the traffic on Middlebrook. I left the office at 4:33.

We got to Petsmart at 6:20. Doris looks *great*. Best grooming job ever!!! Her fur looks so perfectly clean and fluffy; it's crazy. Of course, she walked right out of the grooming room and promptly peed on the floor in the middle of the aisle. Doh! We found the Oops! Station and cleaned that puddle right up!

On the way to World Market, a little old lady in a minivan almost hit me because she didn't stop at an intersection and she didn't look to see if anyone was coming. People like that really shouldn't be driving. She never did see me. *I* stopped. It was all very astonishing. And disturbing.

At World Market, Wesley took Doris for a walk while I walked into the store, and the Thanksgiving stuff was set up in a special section to the left. I wandered over there and noticed immediately that there were stacks of the plain white turkey platters as advertised in the email. And... They... Were.... Huge. They were HUGE!!!!! 

I was actually surprised by the surface area of these things. I started fussing about it inside my head. "This stupid platter is huge! I don't have a place to store that thing. It'll be like the giant metal bowl I bought at the restaurant supply place. Sure, it's handy once a year when I have to make fourteen gallons of reindeer food, but then it sits unused the other 11.98 months of the year, taking up space because it's HUUUUUUUGE!!!! Look at that platter! Limit 2?!?! I could park the Prius on that thing! Geeeeeeeeeeeeeez, I do NOT need ONE platter that big, much less LIMIT TWO, I don't care how little they cost! Gah!!! I Am Not Going To Buy That Platter!!!"

Grumpily, I wandered a little over to one side, wondering if they were out of the leaf-embossed platters and thinking, "No wonder they're selling 'em for $6.99; they couldn't unload impractical giant platters from hell any other way!" I looked at a turkey shaped thing. I think it was supposed to be decorative. It was kind of ugly. I was grumpy.

I wandered around the three displays of Thanksgiving things that had been set up, and as I got to the back corner of the last display, I found one lone leaf-embossed giant platter from hell. I stood there blinking at it and thinking, "I am NOT gonna buy that giant disk from Hades! No! I am a reasonable human being!"

I took two steps away from the leaf-embossed platter, and at that very moment, a couple ran in the door. Ran! As if they, too, had been stuck in traffic and had been busting a gusset to try to get to World Market between the magic hours of 5:00 and 8:00 to get a beautimous seven-dollar platter! (Limit 2!) They made a beeline to the stack of plain platters and grabbed one, which the husband clutched to his chest as if he were afraid it might make a run for the door. The wife whirled in a circle and exclaimed, "Where's the other one?! Where's the one with the leaves? Quick, honey, where is the other platter? WHERE IS IT?!"

Spastically -- I swear I am not making this up, they were like the character Jack from "Will and Grace" in their movements -- the wife flailed her arms about with her head thrown back and high-stepped toward the other two Thanksgiving displays, while the husband hugged his plain platter and went the *other* way around the first display. Their heads moved like chickens' heads in the barnyard. Up! Down! Side! Other side! Up! Down!

I... took two steps back, knelt down, picked up the leaf platter, and walked to the check out lane, where two women in front of me were each buying two giant platters (Limit 2!), and a really pretty floor lamp that I am jealous of. I want that lamp. I wonder how much it costs? Probably more than seven bucks.

The enthusiastic shopping couple got in line behind me with two plain platters. When they saw my leaf-embossed platter, the husband yelled, "OH MY GOD! Where did you find that?!" I told him it was on a shelf in the Thanksgiving section, but I'm pretty sure it was the last one.

I now own a platter that could hold a roast pig. Not a suckling pig. A whole, adult hog. If any of you would like to borrow it, I would be happy to lend it out. We just need a truck to carry it to you.  ;)

Above is a photograph of the giant leaf-embossed platter from hell. It is with a Clinchfield platter and a Fiesta platter for scale. I threw in seven dollars to help with perspective. The Fiesta platter is no slouch -- it is a very good-sized Fiesta platter at 13.5" across the long part of the oval. The giant platter from hell (GPH, I guess) is 21.25" across. 

[NOTE: The World Market ad said it was 21" across. This is the first incident of understatement in advertising in the history of the world.]

My sister Amy laughed and laughed when I told her about why I got the platter I didn't want to have to store. She says I am a seagull from "Finding Nemo." MINE! MINE! MINE!!!

She also offered a number of alternate uses for it:

"If it snows, you can use it for sledding."

"You could put legs on it and use it for a table."

"You could paint it with chrome: Voila! A full-length mirror!"

ROFL -- I have a new platter. Strangely, I still want more Fiesta serving pieces, though.