We’re all familiar with unobtanium, right?
From the Wikipedia:
“…any fictional, extremely rare, costly, or impossible
material … needed to fulfill a given design for a given application.”
Color-matching tile for the bathroom has been our most
recent unobtanium quest. We long ago gave
up on trying to find enough in a perfect color to do everything, and were just
hoping to find some accent pieces to relieve the (planned) solid white. Which is why we found ourselves in a New
Jersey hotel at 2am on Friday, hoping to get a couple hours of sleep before
visiting the World Of Tile liquidation sale.
We frequently talked about needing to make the pilgrimage,
but when faced with the store’s closing, the urgency ramped up considerably,
and we decided to squeeze in a side-trip to already-planned vacation. However, this meant that while we only had a
3-hour drive (instead of 10) there were some other expenditures, adding to the “true
cost” of our treasure.
| Air travel | $496.40 | (technically we were going anyway) | |
| Rental car & gas | $179.47 | ||
| Hotel | $101.32 | ||
| Breakfast | $14.01 | ||
| Actual cost of items | $28 | (+ $7 tips) | |
| Packing materials | $11.53 | (not including what we could scavenge) | |
| Shipping | $78.72 | (things that wouldn't fit in suitcase) | |
| Overweight baggage charge | $75 | ||
| Total | $990 | (or, $494 without airfare) |
However, let us consider the score:
| ~60 pieces of color-matching bullnose tile | ($70 for similar quantity of new white) |
| 28 square feet of mosaic floor tile | ($252 comparable new product) |
| color-matching ceramic accessories | ($95 for white reproductions) |
| chrome new old stock in-box accessories | ($50 for reproductions) |
| Total | $467 |
So, not exactly saving money with this little quest!
Then again, we had an adventure, crossed a trip to WoT off the bucket list, salvaged some authentic goodies from the wrecking ball, found a bit of our unobtanium, and... well...
look at
this stuff!
Isn’t it neat? Wouldn’t you think my collection’s complete?
Wouldn't you think I'm the girl, the girl who has everything?
Look at this trove, treasures untold. How many wonders can one cavern hold?
Looking around here you'd think, "Sure, she's got everything."
I've got gadgets and gizmos a-plenty, I've got whozits and whatzits galore.
You want thingamabobs? I've got twenty.
But who cares? No big deal. I want more!
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