the Devil's Den

Tonight's foray into the Devil's Den was, unfortunately, unsuccessful.

Tomorrow is my friend's birthday. All I wanted to do was get her two books. So I stopped at Barnes & Noble on my way to another function. I figured that this way, I couldn't get trapped by all the Devil's Tools because I didn't want to be late. I dashed back to the children's section and found the two books I was looking for in the formats I was wanting them. But then, just off to the side of one of them, were two more books. Yes. I bought them. A three-minute stop and I still walk out with more than I went in to get.

So much for my new system. I had thought that, in order to keep from buying too many books, I would put together a list and only buy books from that list. There, of course, would be no limit to the number of books on the list, because, well, as I buy something, I get to cross it off. This worked for my last trip into the Devil's Den. Sure, I walked out of the store with six books in my bag, only one of which I had actually gone into the store to buy that particular trip, but all of them were on my list. That is the advantage of a list with 50 titles.

I could have sworn that tonight's books were on the list; they were, therefore, safe to buy. Apparently I was wrong. So I have cheated. I wrote them down (because surely I intended to write them down anyway) and then promptly crossed them off.