![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Day 339 - Adventures in Shopping
Dec. 5th, 2009 05:09 pmOkay, so for reasons that are not important to our tale, I had this ambition to make a suit of armour out of cardboard. But I also wanted to have some toy knights on hand for my kids to take home since I'm not prepared to make multiple copies of armour. After scouring the toy stores on line, I came to the conclusion that Knights have apparently fallen out of favour! Who knew!
However, after many hours - thirty minutes or so - of diligent googling, I found something some what appropriate at Toys R Us. The website said out of stock but the local Toys R Us is close by so I thought I'd check it out. I also got recommendations from people to try gaming stores. We only have one in my area so I thought I'd look there too.
Plan in hand I embark!
When I arrived at the mall, I was swiftly reminded of several things!
1. I hate shopping.
2. I HATE shopping.
and finally...
3. I HATE SHOPPING!
Keep this in mind as I share my thoughts.
Firstly... Dear Mall.... If you want me to spend money, please not to be annoying me by HIDING YOUR FRICKING STORES!!! kthxbye! Secondly... THE YOU ARE HERE SIGN SHOULD BE THE FIRST THING PEOPLE SEE WHEN THEY ENTER THE MALL!!! It makes absolutely NO sense to expect people who are UNFAMILIAR with the mall layout to be able to FIND the map of the mall in the first place. Or failing that, you could make a game out of it. Have someone yell over the loudspeaker... YOU'RE GETTING WARMER! WARMER! NOOOO, NOW YOU'RE GETTING COLDER!!!! At least that'd entertain the worker and possibly distract the shopper from their rising ire.
Also, whose brilliant idea was it to list the contents of the mall by category but depict those same contents on the map by letters? If you're going to show stores on the map in groups of letters, wouldn't it make more sense to list them by letters also??? I certainly thought so when I was trying to find the stupid gaming shop. It was listed under the speciality section. Fair enough. It was listed as A4. Because my sense of direction is lemming like in efficiency, I looked to see what the other stores around it were, so that I could make sure I was heading in the right direction. Well, helpfully enough, the other stores around it were A1 through A5. HAHAHAH. It took me five minutes to find them on the name list because they were spread out all over the various categories. I think my way would be better.
Anyway... according to the map, I was here and the gaming store was there and it was next to this and that and so I set off. I had to come back to the You Are Here sign about three times before I figured out that A4 consisted of several little shops, ONLY ONE OF WHICH was the gaming store. YOU FAIL AT LIFE STORE MAP!!! GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL! DO NOT PASS GO!
I entered the gaming store and could tell immediately that my quest would not end here. But the nice long haired gentleman was nice so I told him what I was looking for and he was all oh but we have knights! So I spread my hands and said show me what you've got. What they HAD was TEENY TINY WEE MODEL knights! That you have to put together and paint. And so I shook my head alas, bid the nice gentleman a fond adieu and set out again.
Next I hit the Toys R Us. I didn't even spend two minutes there. The place was packed with idi... err.. customers and there was no help staff in site. Plus the line ups were ridiculous. I took one look and thought... You know.. even if I FIND what I want here... It'll probably take me ten hours to pay for it anyway. So I left, thinking wouldn't it be an awesome thing if they actually had MORE staff instead of less when it was busy. Then they could have people standing there asking people what they needed to find, helping them find it and getting them through the check out in a speedy fashion. I bet they'd make enough money to pay for the extra staff and still have profit. I'm pretty sure at least 40% of the people I saw lined up will put down their stuff and leave in annoyance. That's money lost.
So now I'm home. But I think I lost my ambition to make cardboard armour in the crush of shopping madness.
However, after many hours - thirty minutes or so - of diligent googling, I found something some what appropriate at Toys R Us. The website said out of stock but the local Toys R Us is close by so I thought I'd check it out. I also got recommendations from people to try gaming stores. We only have one in my area so I thought I'd look there too.
Plan in hand I embark!
When I arrived at the mall, I was swiftly reminded of several things!
1. I hate shopping.
2. I HATE shopping.
and finally...
3. I HATE SHOPPING!
Keep this in mind as I share my thoughts.
Firstly... Dear Mall.... If you want me to spend money, please not to be annoying me by HIDING YOUR FRICKING STORES!!! kthxbye! Secondly... THE YOU ARE HERE SIGN SHOULD BE THE FIRST THING PEOPLE SEE WHEN THEY ENTER THE MALL!!! It makes absolutely NO sense to expect people who are UNFAMILIAR with the mall layout to be able to FIND the map of the mall in the first place. Or failing that, you could make a game out of it. Have someone yell over the loudspeaker... YOU'RE GETTING WARMER! WARMER! NOOOO, NOW YOU'RE GETTING COLDER!!!! At least that'd entertain the worker and possibly distract the shopper from their rising ire.
Also, whose brilliant idea was it to list the contents of the mall by category but depict those same contents on the map by letters? If you're going to show stores on the map in groups of letters, wouldn't it make more sense to list them by letters also??? I certainly thought so when I was trying to find the stupid gaming shop. It was listed under the speciality section. Fair enough. It was listed as A4. Because my sense of direction is lemming like in efficiency, I looked to see what the other stores around it were, so that I could make sure I was heading in the right direction. Well, helpfully enough, the other stores around it were A1 through A5. HAHAHAH. It took me five minutes to find them on the name list because they were spread out all over the various categories. I think my way would be better.
Anyway... according to the map, I was here and the gaming store was there and it was next to this and that and so I set off. I had to come back to the You Are Here sign about three times before I figured out that A4 consisted of several little shops, ONLY ONE OF WHICH was the gaming store. YOU FAIL AT LIFE STORE MAP!!! GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL! DO NOT PASS GO!
I entered the gaming store and could tell immediately that my quest would not end here. But the nice long haired gentleman was nice so I told him what I was looking for and he was all oh but we have knights! So I spread my hands and said show me what you've got. What they HAD was TEENY TINY WEE MODEL knights! That you have to put together and paint. And so I shook my head alas, bid the nice gentleman a fond adieu and set out again.
Next I hit the Toys R Us. I didn't even spend two minutes there. The place was packed with idi... err.. customers and there was no help staff in site. Plus the line ups were ridiculous. I took one look and thought... You know.. even if I FIND what I want here... It'll probably take me ten hours to pay for it anyway. So I left, thinking wouldn't it be an awesome thing if they actually had MORE staff instead of less when it was busy. Then they could have people standing there asking people what they needed to find, helping them find it and getting them through the check out in a speedy fashion. I bet they'd make enough money to pay for the extra staff and still have profit. I'm pretty sure at least 40% of the people I saw lined up will put down their stuff and leave in annoyance. That's money lost.
So now I'm home. But I think I lost my ambition to make cardboard armour in the crush of shopping madness.
