Overheard and Over-shopped

December 12th, 2006

Overheard one professorly looking man say this snippet to another in passing:

“… global warming in Europe and places like that …”

Yes, all of those places like Europe.

I may have been cranky. I was fresh from Toys ‘R’ Us, where the brilliant decision-makers in Corporate have decided the fire-code-defying crowds of the holiday season require even more of a challenge in the form of giant, stacked displays of extra toys that make it so only one cart can fit through any aisle at a time. What results is a situation in which you enter the store with your cart and hook yourself onto the train of shoppers weaving in and out of the aisles single-file and at a pace determined by whomever needs to pause and peruse the Barbie accessories for ten minutes. It’s not her fault that no one can get by her—there isn’t even room for her to LET anyone by. And what’s she supposed to do, reach out her arm and grab a random toy as she slides by behind the man testing the tires on the Spider-Man bike? I don’t blame her. But I do blame the parents who drag their tots in there, like that’s a fun experience for them. Hey, three-year-old kid, I have an idea: Let’s spend 45 minutes in a store full of things you want but can’t have, and the whole time, I’ll just get more and more testy with you. Then there’s the staff. I pity them, but why was my line, which was comprised of not one but TWO cashier stations, moving more slowly than any other SINGLE-cashier line?? It’s called, “I need to bag this set of fake plastic Subway food in s-l-o-o-o-w m-o-t-i-o-n.”

Nothing like a good rant about the nation’s most fucked up toy store to get you into the holiday spirit, huh?

5 Responses to “Overheard and Over-shopped”

  1. Abigail Says:

    I think “the nation’s most fucked up toy store” is a very apt description of Toys R Us!

  2. ma Says:

    Kinda takes the “Ho, Ho, Ho” out of your Christmas Spriit, doesn’t it? One year, I only shopped after 11 pm just because I couldn’t stand the shoppers. And one of my pet peeves is people who drag their kids around shopping with them and then have no sympathy for how tired and bored and hungry and cranky the little ones get. I remember one year I actually heard one mother say “Shut up, you little pain in the @#%*, I’m shopping for YOU!” Now there’s a mom who doesn’t think of her child as a human being if I ever saw one!

  3. dad Says:

    I was the GOOD HUSBAND, and actually took my wife out shopping on Saturday. After I picked her up off of the ground. She went store-listic on me. What was intended as a short 3-4 store local trip. EXPLODED in to an all day affaiar with multiple store and shopping centers. I hung tough at the first half dozen, but my Claustriphobia kicked in to high gear at Belks. When I can not get my body through the aisles because of all of the displays packed on top of each other. AND the shoppers who decide to return to a counter they just passed by, causing gridlock in the aisle. Well I bailed, what can I say. This must be the adult version of Toys R Crazy!

  4. cindy Says:

    Oh my god! Steve, you took your wife SHOPPING DURING THE HOLIDAYS?!?! Kristan, we should hire your dad to teach at the man-school.

  5. dad Says:

    Cindy,
    I was either;
    1. Charmed by my wife’s smile and eyelashes.
    2. Getting senile in my old age. And forgot
    that shopping (at any time) is HELL!!
    3. Thought that cool gift ideas would appear.
    4. all of the above.

    All I could teach other husbands would be -
    DON”T MAKE THE MISTAKE I DID- RUN FOR YOUR LIFE

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