Today’s earrings don’t have a special story.

I don’t remember exactly where I bought them. But I know it was a quiet gift shop in a sleepy town somewhere.

The kind of shop I would enter to find one clerk and no one buying anything. I would get the feeling that I was the first person (and would be the last) to have entered the shop all day.

When I enter a shop with this vibe, I begin to look for something to buy. A sympathy purchase. I have several pairs of earrings that have been sympathy purchases.

These earrings could also be called a guilt purchase. I knew I’d feel guilty wandering around a shop for fifteen minutes as the only customer and not buying something. (Thinking akin to my stopping at a gas station just to use the bathroom because I always buy something: gum, candy, water.)

These earrings are fine, but I wouldn’t own them if there had been other customers in the shop.