Hunting Around Meant for Clothespins To Make A Chandelier

Sure it is Sunday, but how about a little bonus behind-the-scenes tale of hunting down clothespins for the Pinterest Challenge light fixture that we have in the works? Other considered titles:

• “The Petersik Clothespin Tour of Richmond”
• “Wow, I am a truly patient husband.”
• “Sorry environment, we vow to plant three trees to make up for all that driving”

Okay, so here is the deal. When we first began our clothespin light fixture (first mentioned here), we snagged four bags of clothespins at Ben Franklin simply to get us began. We knew we’d need more, but we did not want to go crazy buying them until we chose on a pattern and had a better sense of how many we’d need. Oh, and Ben Franklin only had four bags at the time too. Minor detail.

 

Once we began clothespinning away, we realized we’d certainly need more. Plenty more. So simply as Clara went down for a nap, Sherry sent me out on a swift errand to get more packs (8-ish was my instruction). Neither of us knew my “swift” errand would turn into a 2 hour, 54-mile trek around the Richmond suburbs.

Since we had already began using the four packs that we picked up at Ben Franklin, I needed to get more packs of the exact same sized clothespins to add to our collection (which sadly meant places like Target and the dollar store were out due to only carrying pins that were too large or too small). So I chose to hit up the same Ben Franklin from before [Marker “B” above] hoping they had been restocked. They hadn’t. Zero clothespins secured.

I only knew of two other Ben Franklin stores in our area, so I stopped by a nearby Bed Bath & Beyond (“we do not sell clothespins”) and Michael’s that shared a shopping center [Marker C]. Michael’s carried another brand of clothespins that came in large, small, and mini sizes. Would not you know we needed the medium size (since those fit perfectly into our wire light fixture frame and would look consistent next to the pins from the four bags that we already had).

Sidenote: And yes, my wife has me labeled as “Husband – John” in her phone. Like she knows so many other Johns that she would get confused withouth the whole “husband” part.

But back to my hunt. Thanks to failing at my first few stops, I realized that I needed to expand my errand circle to the next Ben Franklin [Marker D]. Score, they had three packs of mediums in stock. Perhaps they never stock more than 3 or 4 at a time? But that would mean going to the only other known Ben Franklin store [Marker G] would not get me up to my goal of 8 packs. Crap. Time to break out the big guns: JoAnn Fabrics [Marker E] and Hobby Lobby [Marker F].

Though they were both far out of town, they are both truly big and located off a nearby highway with a high speed limit and low traffic volume. So in short, the need for speed* tricked me into what I would later find out was a bad decision.

*If you are rolling your eyes because this sounds like a typical testosterone-fueled poor decision, allow me to remind you the decision was also swayed by the possibility of finding CLOTHESPINS at a JOANN FABRIC or a HOBBY LOBBY. I was deserving of a masculine moment, okay?

Anyway, you’ve likely guessed where this was going. Sherry in fact did some calling around and they both said they had clothespins, they simply did not give her specifics on size or brand, so I had to check those things out myself. Spoiler alert: both JoAnn and Hobby Lobby failed me (once again, only large, small, and mini sizes). At least the Burger King I stopped at in at between them did not let me down (it had been over an hour of clothespin hunting and clearly I was growing weak). So with nearly all hope lost – and visions of a half-filled clothespin chandelier creeping into my mind – I trudged my way to my last Ben Franklin [Marker G] where Sherry had also called ahead for me (but could not get any assurance that they had the specific brand and size that we needed).

Here is where I should’ve been ecstatic: they had them. But here is also where I felt like an idiot: they had nine packs. NINE. Yep, had I gone here in the first place (a mere 8 miles from home, no less) I would’ve found all of my clothespins in one spot. No two hours wasted. No getting tired of cashiers joking “you must have plenty of laundry to do!” No Burger King-induced stomach ache.

Oh well. Shoulda, woulda, coulda right? Even by calling ahead and identifying places to avoid (Target, the dollar store, Bed Bath & Beyond, etc) it was still was a fairly exhaustive tour of my fair city. The bright side is that the chandelier is shaping up to be truly cool. Sherry and I have been experimenting with a lot of distinct clothespin patterns and we cannot wait to finalize things, hang it up, write a picture-riffic walkthrough, and share the results on Tuesday morning (and hear what all of you folks tackled if you opted into the whole Pinterest Challenge thing too).

The only bummer? We have four leftover packs of unopened clothespins to return to Ben Franklin, my new home away from home. Yup, there was a mild to moderate over-calculation. So we truly only needed four more packs in the first place (as opposed to the eight that I picked up home). In the words of the consistently eloquent Homer Simpson: d’oh.