Tag: West Edmonton Mall

The Paint Store

February 19, 2022 / Conal

The six most feared words in my world are: “I’m going to the paint store.”

If my artist wife and I have been together for two decades, the paint store has been a fixture in our relationship for just as long. And it stubbornly sat there between us for 15 years.

Every so often, she would take her one-hour round trip and come home with a car full of supplies. When she got home, I would ask the question I didn’t really want to know the answer to: “How much did you spend?”

Inevitably, my response to the dollar amount was, shall we put it mildly, incredulous.

The Employee Discount

November 13, 2021 / Conal

“I’ve got a job,” my artist wife said, rushing into the living room of our fourth-floor walk-up apartment shortly after our honeymoon and long before the days of her established art business.

I know, I thought. You’ve been working customer service at the local department store in our suburban mall for over a year.

“A new job,” she continued, after my bewildered look betrayed my thoughts. “It’s gonna be awesome.”

“Oh really?” I asked. “Where?”

“DeSerres,” she said.