I have three interesting (at least to me) stories to tell about my shopping experiences leading up to and after Christmas.
1) I go to Best Buy to pick up a couple DVDs for my brother for Christmas. I get there at about 12:15 and I need to be back to work for a phone meeting at 1pm – no problem. I find the movies right away, but since I had so much time, I peruse the big screen TVs and a few things in the computer section before checking out since the lines there aren’t too bad. I get in line at 12:35 and the line coordinator tells me to go to checkout lane 4. I was the fourth in line, so that was no big deal. The person checking out at the time I arrived only had 4 items, but it somehow took him 10 minutes to check out between warranties and his 11 receipts he walked out with. Then, while he was finishing up, they opened another line right next to him with a guy who must’ve just gotten his blue shirt that day, because he had no clue how to run the register. My checkout attendant guy told him to ask if he needed help. The second person in my line went through in reasonable fashion, even though my guy was interrupted once by the newbie next door. Then the person in front of me comes through and tries to buy some DVD-R discs which she thinks were on sale. When the checkout guy rings them up, they were not the item she expected. So he has to call back to the area of the store that handles this. So we wait, and wait and wait and never get an answer from that department. The lady calls her man-friend on her cell, and they decide after about 10 minutes in line, that they don’t need to purchase the item. Then as I finally make my way to pay for my two basic items, my checkout guy stops me and says he has to help his newbie neighbor. I think he could see the steam rising out of my ears when he finally got to checking me out, because he didn’t waste much time and just got it over with. So in the end, I got to enjoy 24 minutes in line as I walked out at 12:59. I had to apologize to my customer for taking the call on my cell phone away from my computer, but fortunately they didn’t grill me for the 10 minutes it took to get back to work.
2) We painted my office earlier this month, and to support the renovation and as my Christmas gift from my parents, I was going to get a bookshelf from IKEA. We saw it online and it was a perfect fit for the office and only $200. I tried to order it online, but when I saw it was going to cost $310 to ship, I figured I’d be better off making the 3 hour trip to get it. So I left at 7:45 am and pulled in at 10:45 to start the experience. I must say they have a cool shopping experience there. They show off how their furniture would look in a room, then they have you follow a walking path through all the rooms, then past the knick-knack items all the way to the warehouse where you can load up your own items and take them through the self-checkout. I can see why they can offer such low prices when I had zero interaction with people while buying a 6′ by 6′ bookshelf. The store is cool and the stuff there is cheaper than the big box stores. It’s definitely an experience worth taking in – it’s too bad it’s such a long hike to get there. And, if you go, remember where you parked so you don’t spend 10 minutes in the freezing cold trying to find your car like I did.
3) The four of us went to see grandpa’s basketball team play this Thursday and after a quick stop went out to dinner at a place that has the games for kids in the back. Katie always wants to take part in the games, but they’re mostly for 6-14 year olds, so I usually don’t let her spend too much money there. So with $1 we were able to play four games. I somehow got lucky on this game where you pound a small basketball and it sends ping pong balls up towards tiny baskets, and netted 12 tickets. After Katie got 1 a piece for giving the other three tokens the old college try we ended up with 15 tickets which I figured was enough to get a 2 cent item and a 1 cent item. After finishing eating, we went to redeem our tickets and found out the minimum item cost 10 tickets. As I was trying to corral Katie into deciding what 1 cent item she wanted, she was looking up at all the other options. The kid behind the counter (I can say kid now that I’m this old – he was probably 17) said "Do you like this" as he pointed to a doll. Katie said yeah, and he gave one to her and to Amelia even though they were 500 tickets in cost. Then he gave them both 2 bigger bouncy balls that were 175 tickets a piece. We figured he was going to hold us up for money or something once the toys were in the girls hands, but he said no – just take them. I gave him my 15 tickets and we walked out with 1350 tickets worth of merchandise. I’m not sure his motivation, but I guess we’ll take a little after Christmas bonus.
Well, I really was going to tell 4 stories, but it’s late and I’m old and I can’t even remember the fourth story. I’m sure it was good.
Eric's space 