I was shopping for some clothes for me. I found a few things to try on so I stepped into a dressing room. At first my focus was on the clothes, but gradually it shifted and I realized that playing loudly from a speaker right above my head was a cutesy, wordy song that I’d never heard before.
So I stopped what I was doing and had a listen. Big mistake. Now I have an ear worm… and this is what I’m hearing.
[You’ve been warned. Click on the link at your own peril.]
I was at the supermarket checking out at one of the four U-Scan areas. I swiped a six-pack of beer across the scanner and it registered the price. The scanner screen then stopped, waiting for the employee watching over the U-Scans to bypass the need for me to show ID.
But the employee, a kid around 20, didn’t hit the bypass button.
He shouted over to me to show him some proof that I was old enough to buy beer. At first, I thought that he was talking to someone else behind me who was checking out.
But he wasn’t.
Then I figured that he was joking around with me. After all, I’m closer to Medicare than the magical age of 21.
But he wasn’t goofing with me. He was serious.
In fact, by then he’d walked over to me and was standing right in front of me, demanding ID. So I yanked my wallet from my purse– which caused my lipstick to go flying onto the bagging area of the U-Scan– and started to show my driver’s license to the guy.
But something about the amazed look on my face + the close-up of my wrinkled skin/graying blonde hair must have startled this guy because his demand for my ID suddenly turned into a quiet little question: “Ma’am, are you old enough to buy alcohol?”
To which I answered a simple little: “yes.”
And with that, the employee guy picked up my lipstick and handed it to me. Then he walked back to his U-Scan post where he hit the button that allowed me to buy beer.
I finished scanning my items without incident and put them in my bags. Then I left the supermarket with a big smile on my face– and a crush on this kid who takes his job very seriously.
God bless him and his bad eyesight.
[WordPress automatically generates suggested tags for each post. The three it suggested for this post are: Beer – Medicare – God. A glimpse into my future, perhaps?!]
We’re in the process of redecorating our home. Instead of the original color scheme of drab taupe/pinkish-beige walls, we’re changing the color scheme to relaxing golden/sandy/khaki colors.
As you can imagine, this project has made me just a bit crazy. I’m obsessed with choosing the perfect new color for each room. So we paint large splotches of a potential color on all four walls in the room we’re working on, and then I look at the color in different light for a few days until I decide what I want.
But on Saturday morning I was indecisive. So very early Saturday morning, before it was light out, I got Zen-Den to paint one more splotch of the potential color on a wall. I figured that I’d get dressed, the sun would come out, and then I’d give this color one more look-see.
To decide for sure.
Well, as usual, Zen-Den got dressed much more quickly than I did. And, as usual, he was standing around in the foyer waiting for me to get ready. He had no idea that I’d stopped for one last glance at our color-to-be, so he shouted upstairs and asked me what I was doing.
To which I answered without one ounce of irony: “I’m watching paint dry.”
Because I was. Darn it.
Instantly, from below in the foyer I heard Zen-Den burst out laughing. He realized that I hadn’t a clue what I’d just said– and he could barely contain himself waiting for me to realize what I’d just said.
Eventually I realized what I’d said and started laughing at myself… which made Zen-Den laugh even more about what I’d just said.
And continue to laugh… all the way to the paint store. Where I’m happy to report that the one of us who wasn’t laughing like a nut purchased the perfect color of paint for our bedroom walls.
So there. HA!
I don’t like to shop for clothes– at the mall– in the department stores. However, last week it seemed like a good idea. So…
I went to the mall to look for some spring clothes for me. I parked in the only place I could find– a parking garage about halfway between two department store anchors on either end of the mall. Then I walked to the end of the mall to shop in the big bad department.
Once inside I went to the exact spot in the exact department where I had seen, in January, what I wanted to buy. But my item was not there. In fact, the whole large area formerly devoted to this particular brand was gone. So I went in search of a sales associate. Eventually I found a woman and asked her where the brand I wanted was hiding. I know department stores. They hide things.
She told me that they no longer carried that brand. So I asked: “why?” And this is what she told me.
The brand that I was interested in buying is also sold on a tv shopping network. Dishonest shoppers, who had purchased discounted items on the tv shopping network, were returning these discounted items to the big bad department store– where the big bad department store was giving them a full price refund— which was costing the big bad department store money.
[I have no idea why the big bad department store didn’t pull a Nancy Reagan and “Just Say NO” to the scam artists. That’s what I’d do if I was in charge. But, of course, I am rational and ethical– which in my experience is the antithesis of how department stores work.]
Instead, the big bad department store did the only thing it could think of to solve this problem; it stopped carrying the brand altogether. The brand that I had finally decided to buy. The brand that this annoying store has promoted ad nauseum for years. That brand. *sigh*
So I thanked the sales associate for letting me know what was going on and left the big bad department store empty-handed. Again.
As I was walking back to my car, I started thinking about what had just happened. I had made the effort to buy something, but was defeated by the very store that had convinced me that I needed this item. That was annoying.
I’d been told a story that made the big bad department store look like a victim– which, I guess, the sales associate thought would make me sympathetic to the plight of the store. That was weird.
But most importantly, I’d had the belated realization that I should never, ever listen to what the big bad department store says. Everything about the place is hinky. And this insight, gentle readers, was worth the trip to the mall. I have learned. I am better for it.
And you know what? I’m not going back there again.
[Hello FTC! I cannot lie. I didn’t put this disclaimer on this post when I first published it because I didn’t use any names of the companies that I’m writing about here. But now I can see that in the comments below I will be revealing the identity of the big bad department store. So just to be safe, here is what you like to see: I have received no money or other compensation for the opinions stated in this post or in the comments below.]
THE SPECTACLED BEAN 