We meet again, my old nemesis…

I’ve invented a new table game, it’s called “Michaels, the game.” The object will be to get into the popular art and craft supply store, and get out without breaking your budget, or someone else, in the process.

For those who live in other parts of the country like the East Coast, where similar retail stores have crazy-different names, (like we have a Fry’s here that sells groceries, yours over there sells electronics, what is up with that? And for our readers in Sri Lanka or something, I have no clue what you have over there, sorry.) Michaels is a supermarket-sized arts and crafts store that is designed to cater to all creative hobbies, but specializes in none.

Michaels has changed a lot over the years, the full extent of those changes hit me today when I was doing one of my ventures out into the heat to get some black paint and glue.I don’t go there as often as I used to; there was a time that I could easily push a full shopping cart of supplies out of Michaels, being pretty much the only convenient place to buy things like permastone/hydrocal, airbrush parts, quality craft paints resins, and so forth and so on. But over the past several years Michaels has morphed from these tacky but cozy plaza-fillers,

to these gleaming monuments erected to honor fad-hobbyists across the country.

Some changes have been fairly innocuous, like the Rise Of The Scrapbooking Age, which has led to some great textured paper finds for my terrain use, and some have been a little more… sinister. Such as the growing popularity of electronic cutting tools, such as Cricut, an insanely expensive cutting machine that forces you to buy a $40.00 cartridges per font. Anyone I’ve talked to about this shrugs like it’s not a big deal. You don’t understand! I say, my voice rising. This is the age of information and sharing of technology, I could, right now go get on my computer, design something in three dimensions and have it physically MADE for me and shipped to MY HOME for the price of one cartridge, which I should re-emphasize, a CARTRIDGE?? Really?

This usually makes them run away. But I feel I raised some good points.

Some other changes to the store have been cultural:

Are you kidding me?

But the next major change to how things work around here is that you need a plan before you go inside, and some coupons, because something nefarious is afoot, from the price gouging pitfalls, fine print exclusions and store-wide 50% markup on anything on the shelves, to the gradual abandonment of actual art supplies, some people are starting to get fed up.

There are all the signs of a sinister plot and I think I know who is responsible. It only makes perfect sense really; it’s a well-known fact that Michael’s has ties to a very powerful individual, a convicted criminal worth over a half a billion dollars and tendrils of influence spreading across the land.

That’s right, I’m talking about my arch-nemesis, her.

Our ancient feud knows no bounds.

I feel that she’s had it out for me personally for a long time now, maybe she’s sensing my growing power, they say she can do that. This suspicion was confirmed when I went to pick up my favorite brand of craft paint, Delta Acrylics from my local Michaels, and instead I found… this.

Michaels discontinued Delta Ceramcoat paints to make room for Martha Stewart’s brand of acrylic paint. Okay, well her name is associated with quality, maybe they’ll be better than Delta, they certainly cost more, lets just take a look at what colors we have here…

That monster! She must be stopped! Before her sinister curse takes over the rest of the store!

Crap, she got to the brushes, stamps and… whatever the heck that other stuff is..

No! Too late!! IT’S EVERYWHERE!!

It’s gone, it’s all gone. Surely there’s something left in the store for me still, right? Something I can use to keep producing the terrain that we love so much?

…

_{Please note: 3T-Studios does not advocate acts of terrorism against any craft store. Our lawyer Leonard J Crabs has prepared a legal statement that attests that all copyrighted imagery shamelessly stolen and used without permission on this blog is in fact “cool.” Furthermore, he has advised that we sprinkle salt across our thresholds to keep Martha Stewart’s familiars from sneaking in and stealing our eyes. They say she can do that.}