Know before you go

We picked my mom up in Tennessee and we get to keep her for the next month. (There have to be some benefits to having divorced parents- that's about the only one- but, we'll take it). One of the things I look so forward to when my mom comes is her reading with Charlie. She's a reading specialist by training and so she loads me up with reading helps for his grade level. The whole reason I brought this up is because of what happened to me today at Kinko's.

I had forty 8 1/2 x 11 pages of sight words to laminate. I never go to Kinko's and it's been years since I've gotten things laminated, so I'm rather out of touch with todays prices. I was expecting to spend 6 or 7 dollars- 10 at the most. And, I have no idea why I didn't ask the manager what it would cost beforehand, but I didn't. He was really helpful and showed me how to use all the machines and then did the laminating while I cut things out. He even offered me a 15 % discount when he saw my project and learned my mom was an educator. I was thinking, "oh, that's thoughtful of him. That will save me $1.50 or so...." So, you can imagine the look of shock on my face and total speechlessness when he told me the total would be $51.00! It sort of knocked the wind out of me.

I must have looked pretty pitiful, because after I told him I was flabberghasted at the price and there's no way I could pay that much , and what I had imagined the cost would be, he said, "well, since this is going towards a good cause, I'll do it today for $10.71." I couldn't believe his generosity, but thanked him and paid the bill. Next time, I'll know before I go. Laminating and color copying aren't cheap. Gone are the days of me laminating my kids "Go Fish and Memory " cards and other things I did for Spencer and Sawyer when they were little. But, I'm sure glad I did, because I still have them for Charlie and Lucy.