Now there's a blast from the past...

I was in the living room this afternoon and Scott was on his way out the door.

"Sears catalogue!" He shouts as he throws the book down and slams the door shut.

"What? No WAY!" I say aloud to no one in particular and throw down my knitting, bounding up to get it in case this is all a figment of my imagination.

It wasn't. Today I'm holding a Sears catalogue. A flipping Sears catalogue, people. I haven't shopped there in years let alone had one of these books in my hot little hands. This is so great!

When I was a kid, the Sears catalogue came a few times a year and was a huge deal. One was usually at the end of summer and the picture on the front was of a boy and girl impeccably dressed for the first day of school. They looked like little private school kids drained of personality and full of brains. Maybe that's why my mother always got those exact outfits for my brother and me year after year. Some kind of voodoo to make us better, smarter kids. Poor deluded woman.

Anyway, back to the catalogue. It arrived in all its glory with a big giant thud on our front porch every August. I always felt sorry for the mailman who had to deliver a neighbourhood-full of these 500 page monsters. But we got ours and that's what mattered. I loved that book. It smelled like everything new and when I cracked the spine I'd feel an actual thrill. And it wasn't even the Christmas Wish version yet.

I'd turn through every page of that book, even through the housewares and automotive stuff that no 7 year old kid has any business caring about. I spent ages with it, lovingly folding down page after page of the things I wanted to go back to (a habit I still have). It should go without saying that the toy section was the most thumbed through since my brother and I both drooled through that section folding and circling, making sure our parents knew exactly what we wanted for Christmas.

So that's my Sears story. And today I got one for the first time in years. It likely belongs to a neighbour but there's no name on it so if there's a knock on my door looking for it, they'd better be prepared for a messed up book covered with marker and scrunched up pages. Cuz that's the way I roll.

kxx