The Plug

I don’t usually give a blatant plug, oh I give a nod to extra good goodie providers or a great sale, but most of the time I just offer the link and let you take a look and decide.


Today will be an exception. I went to our own Art Connection looking for mats. I have a series of prints I wanted to give to a pal but did not want to force her to accept my idea of frame selection so I was just going to mat the little pluckers and be done with it. Then it occurred to me that leaving the print out where the kids and the cats and the weather could get to it was like throwing it in the street and smiling as the cars create a Jackson Pollock.

No, there had to be another layer, that way the pal could stick them in a drawer or a closet and be safe from friction damage.

So I did a little look around the Internet and found that the best and cheapest, (MacMirandastein remember?) method of offering some protection without breaking the bank or stifling the decorating skills of my pal is a poly bag.

After a short but relatively thorough search I discovered if you don’t need a hundred or so and you want then within this lifetime you are going to pay between twenty to forty cents a bag plus shipping. Ouch!

So let’s recalculate, mats, about four dollars and fifty cents plus shipping and bags about thirty cents plus shipping, so my net is…five bucks a print plus shipping and a ten days wait.

Okay, so these are not the mission critical pictures like wedding pictures or children’s pictures or even pet memorial pictures, a few days more or less doesn’t matter, but I did want to get this done before I forget or my pal meets Prince Charming, marries and moves to the Big Apple to live in sinful, decadent luxury for the rest of her natural life.

So I thought I’d give the local guys a shot.

The Art Connection in beautiful, downtown Coos Bay is a place where you can find almost anything you need in the way of supplies. They will even order it in if you can describe it and pay for it and whine enough.

I dashed in while out running chores, had to stop at the bank and drop off a computer that was acting naughty and had to be corrected so that The Man In the Carpeted Office could do his thing, (No it does not even mean that so just get your mind out of the gutter), and bring grants and gifts to all of us in the art world and there I was just across the street from The Art Connection and I said, “Self,” when talking to oneself it is important to maintain the rules of formal conversation, “Self, let’s us just see if they have what I need and maybe I can just swoop in and get it and be back out at the Vet’s before the Long Suffering knows I’m AWOL.”

So in I went and had a look. Fortunately Liv noticed I had no idea what I was doing so she came over and bailed me out and it turns out they did have just what I was looking for at around the same price I could get on the Internet so I bought the little puppies and headed back and yes, I made it before the Long Suffering knew I was gone!

Now later today when I actually got around to using the mats I noticed a curious thing, they were sealed in clear poly bags just like the ones I was thinking of buying. Eureka! The Light bulb went off, (Florescent of course to protect the environment and that probably explains why it took so long to light up) and I said, “Self, we have here a wondrous thing. They have sold me the mats I needed and I got the poly bags included.”

So for the price of a mat I got protection for my prints, made my art look a lot better than it would have, supported the local economy and made my pal happy all in one swell foop!(If you didn’t read BC you’re out of luck on this one.)

The moral of this story is, think before you buy. Sure Internet prices can be really, really good. But they don’t often offer bonus materials.

So guys and dogs, thanks very much for supplying just what I needed and for making the trip such a one-stop shopping stop and for making sure that the end result of all of my efforts looked as good going out as it did in my dusty little mind.