Brown toppers.

If there are options on a dessert menu, ice cream is not my first choice. That being said, sometimes I am really in the mood for ice cream, but it needs to be really, really good ice cream. Like Baskin Robbins. And sometimes when I am in the mood for Baskin Robbins, I leave work and drive down the street and get a double mint chocolate chip on a sugar cone. Because at BR, that is all I ever get.

One day, when I was in that kind of a mood, I drove down to Baskin Robbins and there was a sign on the building that said CLOSED. My heart sank.

It didn't say WE'VE MOVED, it said CLOSED. I was extremely disappointed. Baskin Robbins really is the only place I make a special trip to to get some ice cream when I am in the mood. Sigh.

My second choice of an ice cream treat (well, technically if we're talking ice cream treats, my first choice is a drum stick - I LOVE drumsticks - but now the gas station by my house no longer carries drumsticks because they are made by Nestle's and for some reason that gas station no longer carries Nestle's ice cream products. So my second choice, in this sort of an instance, that being a late night treat fix, is now a Snicker's ice cream bar - it's sooooo yummy), but since we were talking about ice cream cones (we were, right?) that second choice is a brown topper from Arctic Circle. (A brown topper is what they call them - it is really just a chocolate dipped vanilla cone. And I would pick Dairy Queen first but we don't have one in Draper and the closest one is really inconvenient to get to - kind of like the Baskin Robbins is now.)

So, anyway, yesterday I really was in the mood for a brown topper for some reason. I thought about having one all day. And after work I was for sure going to get one. But then I remembered I needed to get to the health food store and I thought that I'd better do that first before they closed. I headed off to Dave's Health and Nutrition store. (And luckily they weren't out of hormonal changease this time ... since I am seriously in need of hormonal help.)

In the same shopping complex, right around the corner from Dave's, is an RC Willey Outlet store and I thought, as long as I was there, I should check out their refrigerators since I needed to get one for the basement rental anyway. I was just going to look, but the sales guy was so sweet and reminded me it was the last day of their Labor Day Sale and I could get 12 months same as cash financing, so I thought maybe I should just go ahead and make the purchase.

Then while I was waiting for the credit check the sales guy suggested that I wander around the store (good thinking sales guy). I did, and I found my way into their super duper clearance section.

I bought a coffee table, an end table and a big framed mirror for the basement - 'cause that way there would only be ONE delivery charge AND it was all an additional 20% off that day!!!!! (Good, good sales guy!)

As I waited, while he wrote up my other items, I was sitting on a really fabulous brown leather sectional watching the most amazing BIG screen T.V. which was sitting in this beautiful black entertainment center that, as I looked at it, I thought You know, that would be so perfect in my family room where my armoir is right now. And then I actually stood up and looked at the price tag.

Seriously Polly? Are you crazy? Isn't the reason you are renting your basement in the first place so you can have some extra income and get out of debt?

Yes it is, and yes I am going a little bit crazy. I have learned that if you just stay home, you don't know what you're missing and you can save a lot of money that way - I need to just stay home.

... Speaking of brown leather and brown toppers, since this post is about brown toppers - after RC Willey's I stopped back by my office to do a blog post (which always takes longer than you think it will, don't they?) and then I headed home and stopped at Arctic Circle for my brown topper.

It was way yummy and really did hit the spot and was worth the extra wait.

(Note to self: Don't eat a brown topper in the dark. Part of the chocolate topper will undoubtedly fall around you, you won't realize it, and then the next day when you get in the car you won't notice that you sat on a piece and smeared chocolate on your pants until you're out at Office Max running an errand for work and then notice it, like you were today.)