“I Have This Gift Certificate”–The Gift That Keeps On Giving

My beautiful wife gave me two $25 gift certificates to Relics, so I popped by on Memorial Day to see if I could spend them. After a long weekend that I’d looked forward to that ultimately underwhelmed–I blame the banana bread fiasco–I hoped the trip would cheer me a bit.

Relics gift certificates are problematic. First, they are paper certificates and not gift cards of any sort. They expire six months after issue, and they do not provide change if you do not spend the face amount of it. So you have to spend over the amount or lose it. The combination of these factors has led to certificates expiring in the past as I’ve lost track of the dates or I’ve not wanted to expend a gift certificate of $25 for $11 in value.

Which was the case on Memorial Day.

I hoped to find something over $50 that triggered my fancy. An old computer reasonably priced. Perhaps something for a new or future hobby, like the bass guitar I bought with one set of certificates or the fencing equipment that I did not.

I really only had an hour to wander before I had to leave to make it home for dinner time, and as a result I only got a record and a couple DVDs.

Here’s what I ended up with:

• The Longest Yard, the Adam Sandler remake of the Burt Reynolds film.
• Step Brothers with Will Ferrell and that guy who’s always in Will Ferrell movies (I know, I know, John C. Reilly, and he’s been in movies without Will Ferrell).
• Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow with Angelina Jolie and an eye patch. Also, some other actors and CGI that has probably not aged well.
• The Watch with Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, and Jonah Hill. I’d never heard of this film, and I’ve considered myself a bit of a Ben Stiller fan.
• Lost in Translation which I am pretty sure that my wife and I saw in the theater because I consider myself a bit of a Bill Murray fan.
• Bedazzled, the Elizabeth Hurley and Brendan Fraser remake of the Dudley Moore film which I also saw in the theater but without Mike.
• Laine Kazan‘s self-titled album. I’d never heard of her before, but Dean Martin had a blurb on the back, so I gave it a go (and it was a rare one dollar record). Turns out she’s more known as an actress than a singer, that she posed nude in Playboy before I was born, and that she’s still alive. Amazing.

When the hour was up and the total was calculated, it was $11.78.

So I did not spend either of the gift certificates. Which means that I’ll have to go back. Maybe this weekend. And I will turn right at the entrance and work my way westward in the shop as I tend to go left and work eastward, so I see those booths twice for every time I see the eastern half of the store. Perhaps there’s a $52 hobby for me to pick up, or at least $52 worth of clutter for my office or garage.