Friday, July 4, 2008

Friday Confession

My Most Embarrassing Purchase Mistake
I got this delightful book with instructions to make "stupid sock creatures" and wanted to make some myself. Here's an example of one that I wanted to make:
In order to make these, I needed to buy some polyester fiberfill. I decided to order it online. The site I went to offered two sizes - for now, let's just call them "small" and "large". They were described in terms of pounds.
I had never worked with fiberfill before and couldn't exactly imagine how pounds translated into volume. I didn't want to run out of fiberfill, so, just to be safe, I ordered the large size.
It was 20 pounds. It came in 4 "pillows". Here is my sock creature in front of one of those pillows:

Yeah, that's A LOT of sock creatures... ;)

You should have seen the look on my husband's face over dinner that night when I casually mentioned that I had ordered 20 pounds of stuffing...

So, how about you? Have you ever made a really dumb purchase? If so, I'd love to hear about it... :)

4 comments:

Shannon said...

Let me start by saying that I rarely "laugh out loud" when I read something online, regardless of how often "LOL" gets thrown around. But, when I read your post and saw that picture, I just about peed my pants laughing. The dog actually woke up and looked at me like I had gone batty.

20 lbs of fiberfill, eh? - that's a hard one to top! The best story I have has to do with shoes. Several years ago, an online stores was having an amazing clearance sale on summer sandals, so I decided to stock up. When I got the notice that the order was in, I casually asked my husband if he would like to come along for the ride to pick up my shoes from the store's customer service. He agreed and off we went. Imagine his face, when the store clerk went into the stock area to get my shoes and came back with a box as big as a compact car. Thank goodness my husband came along, there is no way I could have carried that box by myself. I took both of us, on either end, to manhandle this box down the escalator and out to the car. Now, when ever I ask my husband if he wants to go help me pick up an order, he asks if I bought another skid of shoes!

So, apparently, I have an issue with buying appropriate quantities too!

Claudine said...

LOL on the fiberfill. This sounds like the perfect sort of thing to freecycle if you don't want it hanging around your house until you get around to making hundreds of cuddly toys.

I do this sort of thing all the time because I order my groceries online and get them delivered. I once ordered 18 bags of pretzels. I'm still trying to figure out how I managed that, and I'm glad they don't go bad. Most recently, I ordered a liter of heavy cream. Good thing I'm a cream fiend.

Claire said...

OMG!!! 20lbs of fiberfill. I could so see me doing this. I overbury everything and I am spacially challenged. I overbuy all the time, but my biggest faux pas was the purchase of our entertainment center. It's a ginormous piece of furniture that's really too big for our 2nd floor TV room. DH at least kept me from ordering the larger size. ;o) From what I understand the guys who delivered it would gladly have had me shot at dawn if I had been home when they had to struggle to get it up the stairs and into the room. We have no idea how we'll one day get it out of here. Oh, and fiberfill...I think I have about 20lbs in our storage unit from various unfinished projects and "good sales". ;o)

Anonymous said...

Hi Gwen! It's Kathy. Somehow, it's even funnier seeing this picture than seeing the fiberfill in person! Putting the sock creature in front of the mounds of fiberfill was the perfect touch!