If this were your 8th grade English class, you'd have to find a common theme in my search for "Big Fish" and the "fish that got away" anecdote

I get on these kicks where I want one thing, just one thing, and it's all I can do is to find it. About a year ago began my hunt for an amber, antique hen dish thingy (which really is as grandma as it sounds, but I don't care). It had to be amber (duh). The medium size. Not cracked or chipped. No more than $30. No stickers. No bad smell.

At every antique store Dave and I looked and found white ones, red ones, clear ones. Big ones, tiny ones. But I wanted one that looked like this. It was all I could do to not find it on eBay.com, because that wouldn't be nearly as fun.

I remember when I did find it -- for $10, in Ohio -- I sort of held it in my hands and considered putting it back, because I wasn't even looking for it, and Dave wasn't there. Where was the fun in that? (I changed my mind about the lack of fun when I did buy it and called Dave to tell him ... and as a guy, he didn't really have that same emotional attachment to our chicken hunt.)

And just like that, I had nothing else to look for.

Until now. All I want is "Big Fish." I know a million, trillion Web sites have it; I know. But stores I've been in don't have it. (With my antiques-shopping partner working and shooting weddings, I don't so much have higher goals; though I do have my eye open at all times for postcards from Cincinnati from early last century ...). Anyhow.

An older woman said to me once that she hoped I didn't get whatever it was my 16-year-old self wanted. She said it'd make me a better person to always have something to want.

(Of course, this is the same woman who said to that 16-year-old self at church -- in front of God, my friends and everybody -- that I was filling out nicely. I went home and cried. ... So maybe I should reconsider this self-imposed ban on eBay-ing.)