Haggling

Dear Mom,

I’m not a good people person. I never know what to say to people that I’ve just met and always feel rather awkward. But sometimes I surprise myself with things… like haggling.

I’ve always wanted to grow clematis, but our mailbox (where you usually see clematis growing) is nowhere in sight to view it since our driveway is about 1,000 feet long. We lost a Dogwood and a Bradford Pear tree in front and I thought it’d be fun to add some kind of trellis and grow clematis on it.

I have a hard time envisioning if something will look right with its surroundings and after looking at different things that I thought would work, I needed Norm’s opinion. The one I liked best was the most expensive that I spotted at an antique mall. I asked Norm what he thought would be a good price and so I offered that to the sales person and he refused. We left. We headed to another place and I couldn’t believe when I spotted the exact same thing. There was no price. The salesperson told us what it cost and I turned and said, “But would you take $?” He didn’t hesitate and said, “Sure.” I stopped myself from jumping up and down.

Not only do I have something for my clematis to climb up and around on, it is a tree as well—one that will never die. All because I haggled.

Mom, you were pretty thrifty so I wonder if you ever haggled.

The metal tree: Looking up:
What will be growing on the tree: