#1. Evidence that I am a Nerd

I made a short stop the other day at Books A Million.  The purpose of my stop was to purchase a book for a friend who is struggling with theological questions.  However I never made it to the section where the book would be located.  In fact, I completely forgot why I had originally stopped at Books-A-Million until the next day, when my friend called me and I started to say to her "I bought you a book yesterday....".  oops.  I had not bought the book.  Instead, I remembered that I had been severely distracted while at the bookstore, thus not completing my mission.

Why?  Stamps.

I'm not hugely familiar with the layout of Books-A-Million, so the few times I have shopped there, it takes me a bit to scan the store in order to locate what I am looking for.  So, as I moved toward the back of the store, scanning the aisles....I saw them.

H.E. Harris Bag of 300 United States Stamps.

That bright red bad chock full of stamps had my full attention.  Wow.  I hadn't seen the H.E. Harris Bag o' Stamps in years.  Wow.

You see, when I was quite young, I was a nerdy stamp collector.

Yep, no joke.  I had a big Stamp Album.  I would spend babysitting money to buy that bag of stamps, usually opting for the World Wide Bag for $1.99.  I would spend hours locked in my room, sorting and resorting my stamps, affixing them to their correct spot.  Dreaming of one day finding in the Bag o' Stamps, the elusive missing stamp that would complete a "page".  I loved the colors, I loved the words, I loved the history and stories behind the stamps.

And those "letters to missionaries" that I wrote, supposedly written for GA requirements, in order to learn what our "brave missionaries" were doing in those foreign, pagan lands?  Yep, I wasn't all that concerned about their work with the poor and downtrodden.  My sole purpose in writing these self-less, sacrificing missionares was so that they would write me back in one of those incredibly cool "AirMail" envelopes, with a Stamp from someplace in Africa or Asia.

I completely forgot about getting the book for my friend (corrected by an Amazon Order tonight, all is well) and I nearly purchased that Bag o' Stamps.  But I did not.  But I still might go back and get it and suffer the consequences of my kids rolling their eyes and calling me a nerd.  Well, my 4th grade daughter Bethany wouldn't.  She'd probably think they were amazing, too.  She's a nerd, like her mama, and proud of it.