An unusual place to shop

I discovered an unusual and slightly grim (perhaps) place to shop - hospital gift shops. They just rock! The first one I went to was at St. Joseph's Hospital, when Mr. P was having his nose surgery. I had to wait about three or more hours and had ample time to roam the hospital. Got totally groovy white lilac body lotion that time and a glowy wind up worm toy for Penboy, which totally freaked him out. Yesterday I went to see my mom at Toronto Eastern (she had thyroid surgery) and while she was sleeping, went down to get a coffee and, you guessed it, check out the gift shop. Well, the spoils included a nice angel key charm for me and a yellow smiley face ball for the munchikn. The only problem is so far that there are not too many man things there, but I suppose only women would think to shop at a hospital, so they must clearly know their audience well. These places seem to have a large selection of cosmetics from lesser known Canadian manufacturers that just smell heavenly. I checked out a mango body cream yesterday. Mmmm - it was like mango ice cream in a jar! I was good and did not get it, what with my newly imposed necessity for frugality.

I highly recommend shopping at your nearest hospital for gift items. The best thing is that the profits go to the hospital and because the shops are staffed with volunteers, they don't have to worry about salaries.