SpinnySpinny

So today I was out for lunch and had some time to kill, so I wandered over to Pearl. It’s a big art supply store on Market Street. They always have strange and interesting things in the clearance section and I have at times found some pretty nifty stuff. Very much like today.

I’m pawing through bins, and come up with a wool hand card. Almost at the same time, my friend halfway down the aisle pulls out a matching one from a different bin. 60% off. They are a set of Leclerc fine wool cards, flat ones. They have had them downstairs in the craft department forever so it really was a matter of time before they ended up here. Some hunting unearths another set, still wrapped together in cardboard and tape. There is even a standard pair, with huge painful-looking wire teeth. (No, thanks.)

Now I’m not normally interested in carding by hand in the first place, and I’ve never been fond of the Leclerc cards. They are kinda clunky, and I prefer curved ones anyway. They are some of the less expensive available, but still like $60. And I don’t have a set of flat carders, something that may prove useful later for teaching. We troop up to the front, our matching sets of wool cards for under $20.

Pearl clearance being what it is, I ask how much. They weren’t marked, of course, and although the scanner said the regular price was 39.99 you never can be sure. They do indeed come up 39.99, 60% off, $16 plus tax. Yippie! Then the comment from the cashier: “That’s for one.”

Huh? Wool carders come in pairs. One of them isn’t much use unless perhaps one owns an extremely large cat. “But they come in pairs,” I insist. The cashier is convinced that because there are two of them (from different sets, apparently, and both tagged) then they must be sold individually. We quickly determine that my friend and I are the only two people in the store who have any clue what these things are. I can only convince the staff they come in pairs because my friend has an identical set wrapped together. The cashier examines them closely. And scans the barcode. Sure enough, they come up the same price as the “single.” How is that possible?

Sheesh. I realize that not everyone can be a spinning maven. But to not have the first clue about one’s own inventory? And for something that has been sitting around the store for literally years? But at least I got my discount hand carders.