Look for Me in Office Supplies
July 7, 2026 | by Dorothy Rosby
Some people are Shoe Store People. Some people are Furniture Store People. Some people are Any and All Store People. They can happily browse their chosen retail outlet even if at that moment, they’re not in the market for the object of their obsession or anything else for that matter. Their favorite store is like an art gallery or museum to them, except that occasionally they decide to buy an exhibit. It isn’t uncommon for window shoppers to come home with windows.
My husband is a Vehicle Store Person. You can see why I worry when he goes window shopping. He’s also a Hardware Store Person, which is somewhat less worrisome. At least when a Hardware Store Person decides to buy an exhibit, he doesn’t need to get the bank involved.
I’m not a Vehicle or Hardware Store Person, but I worked at a hardware store when I was a teenager. That’s where I was when I heard Elvis died. But that’s not why I don’t like hardware stores. I don’t like hardware stores because I don’t like hardware. I understand the need for it; when you’re in the market for a sump pump or a socket wrench nothing else will do. But wandering the aisles of a hardware store for fun? No thanks. I’ll wait in the car—or on a chaise lounge in the patio furniture department.
As much as I like food, you’d think I’d be a Grocery Store Person. But I like my food prepared—by someone else. I do appreciate grocery stores though, since I fell in love with my husband at one, or at least got a serious crush on him there. We struck up a conversation right there between the bread and the greeting cards, and the rest is history. But if you see me wandering through the grocery store these days, I’m not browsing. I’m lost.
I know a lot of women who are Clothing Store People or Shoe Store People. I like clothes, but to be a Shoe Store Person, you have to be a Shoe Person and there’s only one type of shoe I like: comfortable ones. Comfortable shoes take up a very small area in the women’s shoe department, and I really don’t care to look at men’s shoes.
The point is, I only go into the above stores when I need something. And then I get in, grab it and get out as fast as I can. I do pay first.
There is one type of store I linger in though and that is the office supply store. I go there often for the printer cartridges but I stay to gaze at the pens, markers and highlighters. Then I make my way to the stationery and the notebooks. I love blank paper like a Hardware Store Person loves light fixtures.
I’m not usually tempted to buy. I have plenty of all of this at home, and after I pay for printer ink, I won’t be able to afford a new pen anyway.
My favorite of all office supplies are the planners. I have an electronic calendar, but for some parts of my life, nothing beats a good old-fashioned paper planner. The blank pages represent possibility which may or may not be realized, and organization, which never is. Still I love looking at planners. It’s a shame I only need one a year. But that doesn’t stop me from browsing.
Dorothy Rosby is a blogger and humor columnist whose column appears regularly in publications throughout the West and Midwest. She’s the author of four books of humorous essays all available locally at Mitzi’s Books in Rapid City and on Amazon.