01689: Pay Days Are Tricky

I walked into Fully Booked planning on picking up a free comic book at their Halloween ComicFest event today. That's the first comic on the left in the image above - a copy of the Halloween edition of Li'l Gotham. But I also ended up walking out of the store with all those other books as well. You know how it is.

Let me start this story from the beginning.

The main reason that I was in Gateway this morning right after work was to meet up with a seller that I had contacted in one of my Transformers Facebook groups. He had a mint in sealed box (MISB) Henkei Ramjet, who is the last of the Decepticon Seekers that I've been wanting for my collection. The price was a little painful, but it was also fair market rate and so I went for it. The meeting wasn't going to be until around 12:00pm so I figured I'd have time to walk around and have lunch since Tobie was supposed to head over to Tahanan today.

I also had one other errand - to pick-up several theater tickets that I had ordered just last night after Tobie and I discussed our plans for the next few weeks. We're already committed to watching Maxie the Musical on November 24 and now we're also going to watch The Addams Family and The Producers on the two Sundays following that one. It actually took us a while to figure out what we wanted to see that - a discussion that included checking out online promotional videos of the cast and checking out their press images. We almost didn't opt to get tickets for The Addams Family, but K-La Rivera's recent performance in Carrie played a significant role in the decision. One show didn't make the cut that - that being the 9 Works Theatrical run of Grease. They cast just didn't feel right.

So I picked up the tickets at National Bookstore then started going around Gateway. Of course I was going to pass by Fully Booked since I knew about the free comics offer. What I did not realize was that their Halloween ComicFest also included discounts on their graphic novels. But I'll get to that in a bit.

So I entered the store, checked out my usual shelves and was satisfied that I had no immediate books of interest. So I went back to the front and collected my free comic. And then I received a text message...from Fully Booked. The message was about a book that I had ordered shortly after the Manila International Book Fair. The book was Hergé and the Treasures of Tintin, which we had actually spotted at the Book Fair, but the seller indicated that it was only a display copy and was not for sale. Thankfully Fully Booked had ordered a copy for me and now it was ready for pick-up.

So I went to customer service and surprised the guy with my being there and claimed the book. He was all excited about claiming that the book was qualified for a 20% discount but was surprised when the book was showing up as part of the store's art and design books inventory. But I was going to buy the book anyway and just availed of my regular Fully Booked member discount. I completed the transaction and walked out.

And then I walked right back in and reconfirmed that he had mentioned that all graphic novels were 20%? Hot dog. And so I went back for the different Adventure Time compilations that I had been doing my best to ignore over the past few months in order to wait for a sale exactly like this one. And here I am, suddenly feeling a lot more geekily fulfilled with three new graphic novels, a free comic book and an awesome Tintin resource.

Now to make Tobie finally read all these Adventure Time comics.