Did you ever buy something you wish you hadn't?
 

As a counterpoint to Donna's excellant question, Has anyone been abroad and bought something that when they got home could have kicked themselves for buying it? <BR> <BR>When I look around the house at all the "must-have stuff" we've toted home, I can't imagine why we needed aprons from Rome with pictures of BIG prosciuttos on them. <BR>

Heh heh. Yep! I feel that way about a lot of stuff we end up with. Stuff always seems so different when you get it home, doesn't it? Sometimes at home it's infinitely cooler than it was in the store and you can't believe you only bought one and other times it's like, what on earth were we thinking??

Yes, to my shame, a "coconut head" monkey! I am not even sure where I bought it, Mexico or Hawaii? But it is silly nonetheless! <BR> Found it over the weekend, when cleaning out my daughters closet and room, still wrapped in its plastic! <BR> It is definitely tiki bar material, not suburban Atlanta stuff! <BR> Judy :-) <BR>

Yeah, my 2000 Sebring Convertible. <BR>What a POS.

Jay: Did you buy that Sebring ABROAD? Or did you buy it for A BROAD? Think you're on the wrong BOARD.

Hey Judy, we have a coconut head monkey, too! We got ours in Key West and it has a place of honor on our shelves. :)

Yep, A coo-coo clock from the black forest. Almost drove me crazy within a day. Now it sits on the wall gathering dust.

Paige: We are moving to FT. Myers in May when he retires, and we will have a tiki hut, so I will build my bar around the "monkey".... and my husband says I am not "frugal". Moi, not frugal.....what a joke! <BR> Judy

Wooden shoes from Holland. What was I thinking? Let's see, should I wear my Nike's to the mall or maybe my wooden shoes???

Yes and no: Bought a whole variety of kitschy souvenir junk near the Sacre Cour. Wondered why I bought the stuff, but ended up really happy to have the mini-Eiffel Tower and coasters, for some reason. Really wanted a World Cup t-shirt from France. Bought one a year after France's victory from a shop along the Seine. Didn't realize until we got home that the X of XL had been drawn on by marker. For the record, I once had a coconut pirate from Peurto Rico.

I've bought many things I could have bought here at home cheaper and not have hauled back, but at least they have the memories associated with them. M.

I lugged home 6 soapstone dinner plates from Kenya . . . what was I thinking! Not only do they weigh a ton but I'm afraid to use them for fear the color/design will come off. <BR> <BR>Won't make that mistake again!

I bought some posters of famous art in Germany. I had to haul these tubes containing the posters around with me for my trip. Then, I priced what it would cost to frame them nicely, and decided I didn't like them enough to spend the money. But I paid good money for these posters in the first place, so I refuse to throw them out. As a result, I have dragged these posters around with me for over a decade, making sure to protect them from damage, unrolling them now and then to make sure I still don't like them. <BR> <BR>Well, today I think I will cast off the shackles and toss them into the trash once and for all.

Oh, yes --- all the books I lugged home from London -- in my carry on -- before I discovered Amazon.co.uk. <BR>

Cindy, try selling those posters on eBay!

Cindy: could you elaborate on the prints? Perhaps we could work out a deal. (I'm trying to decorate some casual areas of my house and have been looking for things....)

They are prints of pics by Kandinsky (sp!), and they are butt ugly by any measure. One is light green mostly, and the other is crapper brown. Bad, bad, bad. Nobody would want 10-year old posters that can probably be had for less on any art poster website. <BR> <BR>Sometimes you just have to make a clean break. I have been a hostage too long, and I don't want to see these darn things ever again. Out they go! <BR> <BR>Now if anyone wants to buy my lousy Volvo stationwagon, just let me know. :-)

Never! I usually regret the things I agonized over and <I>didn't</I> buy. Naturally when I am lugging my overweight bag around I wonder what the heck I'm doing but when I get home I wish I had bought so much more. If you have something you didn't want after all it makes a great gift "I thought of you while I was gone and just knew you'd love this!"

A couple of ceramic toucans from Mexico. Ugly, ugly, ugly! <BR> <BR>Expensive, bad artwork from a foreign student who i'm sure, churned out the same four pseudo-Picasso, cubism period style paintings, day by day and sold them to unsuspecting suckers like me. <BR> <BR>Now when I travel I only take a small bag with barely any room for souveniers. Anything I buy which won't fit into my luggage goes by mail. That way when I buy it, I know I really want the thing since I know i'm going to have to go to the trouble of finding shipping materials and lugging it to a postal service to send it.

A sweater from Crete: Looks nice, very warm, smells to heaven. Note to self: no more wool purchases when suffering from headcold.

Cindy - thank you for my first hard laugh of the day. Frank, thank you for starting this great post. <BR> <BR>I can't think of anything I regret buying. However, my husband regrets my purchase of plastic snow globes. I am obsessed with them and purchase them every place we visit. I have almost 100 of them from our various travels. The tackier the better, the more cliched the better, and must cost less than $5 USD. I imagine that he looks at my collection much the way Cindy looks at her posters.

I've bought some ugly clothes that I never liked once I got home or they did smell funny, also (same wool problem), but the worst was some Waterford Irish crystal I bought in a nice shop in Dublin. I was young and not well-traveled at that point so it was a lot of money for me (it was just some wine glasses and goblets), but I didn't really know what that stuff sold for in the US (I had never shopped for good crystal); I just assumed it would be cheaper in Ireland or something special. Later at home, I found the exact same stuff cheaper in a US dept store and the store did not pack the items correctly so several glasses broke and they refused to answer my letters even though I'd bought insurance; also, they packed the wrong items (switched number of wine glasses and goblets). This was a so-called reputable store in Dublin mentioned in guidebooks. I complained to the Irish Tourist Board or something (some form of consumer complaint dept. for tourists) and amazingly they sent me replacements after that, but the whole thing took about a year to resolve and I didn't save any money. Far from being a good remembrance of that trip, they are a bad one and cost me a lot of money. I learned from that, though -- I never buy anything abroad that is a standard brand you can buy anywhere and I almost never buy something breakable unless I can carry it myself. After about 20 yrs, I just broke my rule last yr when I bought more crystal wineglasses in Prague and had them shipped; I did it because they were so cheap that even if some broke, I figured so what, I'd still be getting a bargain and because I'd been shopping for wine glasses recently and knew what they cost here for same type and quality--this time, not a single thing went wrong and I'm glad I did it.

While travelling through Italy and Greece a few years ago, I bought this leather suitcase in Olympia to cart home all the stuff I bought. It was about $80 and I thought it would be a good investment instead of buying some cheap nylon sack. Well, that suitcase sits in the back of a closet and is nothing but a dust collector. I would throw it out but I keep thinking it would make a lovely gift for someone. Maybe not??

AN ENGAGEMENT RING FOR MY EX-WIFE!

Four coolie hats in Hong Kong. I think my husband, children, and I actually wore them.

Hey, JohnG, I was in Bath and realized I had purchased too many things to fit into my suitcase, so I went to a discount store there and bought a black nylon duffel-bag-on-wheels for about 9 pounds. This thing is huge, tough, and we make sure we take it everywhere--in fact, we went on a short trip to Cologne once, and that was the ONLY bag we took...left our more expensive (and heavy) luggage at home. :)

A sketch of my daughter by an artist at Sacre Cour that cost a pretty penny and looks nothing like her. The artist was so cute we just couldn't hurt his feelings.

A dark green silk blouse in Santa Fe. There are stores all over the place there selling these outfits that look like something you'd go square dancing in. The blouse has deep cuffs, long full sleeves, and a huge collar. Fortunately I didn't buy the matching flouncy skirt (I almost did!). I wore the blouse a couple of Hallowe'ens ago, when I was Little Bo-Peep, but not since.