Photo Credit: Dreamstime

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how much control we have over the stories we live.  Even though I know there are a ton of things we are powerless to control, there are a good number of areas where we have plenty of say.

We can control the way we react.  We can control what our next choice will be.

My husband and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary a couple of days ago.  After eating a lovely dinner in downtown Chattanooga, we thought about what to do next.  We decided we would head over toward the mall and maybe walk around Barnes and  Noble.  We had a little more time of freedom available before we planned to head back in the direction of home and pick up our son.

As we made our way down the interstate, an alternative option to Barnes and Noble crossed my mind.  Costco is on the way home and we need toilet paper.  (We weren’t in crisis mode at home but we were down to only 3 or 4 rolls)  I told my husband, somewhat jokingly/somewhat seriously, about this idea.

As we neared the fork in the freeway my husband asked me to make the call. The fork on the left would take us toward the bookstore.  The fork on the right would take us to toilet paper.  I chose the fork on the left.

Why?  Because, for some reason, I didn’t want the story to read this way.

Hubby and wife had a beautiful 11th anniversary dinner in downtown Chattanooga and then they stopped and picked up bulk toilet paper at Costco.  

I didn’t like that story.  I didn’t like that Practical Polly was attempting to be all practical and stuff.  What a lame way for this particular scene to come to a close.  I didn’t like the idea of our  11 years of doing life together to end with us standing on that  particular stage.  As the curtain comes down and the scene goes dark, couple stands in Costco checkout line with toilet paper in buggy.

We didn’t end up at the bookstore the other night either.  We ended up at the much more romantic and exotic World Market.  We love looking at all the unique stuff in that store.  The only thing we bought was a package of soba noodles.  Our son loves soba noodles.  When we got up to the check out counter, the cashier looked at our one lonely item and asked, “You don’t want any chocolate?”

I thought to myself:  Lady, I always want chocolate.  I was admiring and salivating over every single bar as I walked through your store.

My husband and I both shook our heads. “Nope, we just ate a really great dinner and dessert, thanks.”

Little did Checkout Lady know or understand  that soba noodles were a much better story than toilet paper… at least in Practical Polly’s mind. 😉

Oh, and just so you know.  As much as I tried to resist the luring calls of Costco the other night, in the end, Costco won.   But only for a tank of gas, the needle was on empty.  You might have gotten my gas money the other night, Costco, but you didn’t get my toilet paper money!

Toilet paper purchasing would be a story for another day.