It's very loud. It's dark. It smells overpoweringly of cologne and the line of customers spans the length of the store. It's Hollister. Get me out of here.
by Jen Shenk
To be fair, I should divulge that I'm not much of a shopper in any season. All non-essential purchasing I do is either in the center of Westminster or on Amazon.com, and none of it is for the love of shopping.
One day shortly before Christmas, I ran into my friends Renee and Luci at Walmart. I also just about bumped into my friend Doreen with my cart, but she's in this story later. After talking with Renee and Luci in the vacuum cleaner bag aisle for about 20 minutes, I ran out of time to buy anything, so I was done there.
Fast forward to three days after Christmas. Other than the dwarf hamsters which made Christmas VERY easy (what little kid wouldn't love a small furry creature for Christmas?), cash was king for our six kids this year. Alas, today I had to make good on the promise to take the girls-with-cash (ages 7, 11, 21) shopping. We went to the Natick Mall. The beginning and the end of it is that we got lost getting there, and we got *really* lost getting home. In between that it was a whole bunch of long lines and overstimulation.
My husband Jay, who limits his involvement in shopping to suggesting that I park at Sears because their parking lot is most likely to have empty spots, was comfortably seated at the 3D Avatar movie, 70 miles away with the three boys (ages 9, 20, 25), and was *not* at the mall with us.
To begin this story, I must go back to my friend Doreen. Doreen was kind enough to lend us her Thule car top carrier for a recent trip when we took 5 kids and the dog to Jay's family farm in Pennsylvania.
I've got to make returning the Thule a priority. This message was sent loud and clear this afternoon, when I had 5 kids in the Suburban and pulled into the Natick Pandemonium and promptly whacked into the HEIGHT LIMIT sign. I'm going to blame the Thule that I forgot was on the roof.
When we got into the mall, all I could think of was the Thule. The kids, however, were so concerned that they wanted to go out to eat. For those of you with one child, or maybe two, eating out probably isn't a big deal. But for us, with 6 kids plus friends always in tow and none of them in the lot likes Burger King, we can't get out of a lunch date with the kids without spending $100+. So, I was Mrs. Krabapple right out of the chute.
First stop, FYE (For Your Entertainment, FYI). Max had grudgingly picked up a Michael Jackson CD for Abigail (apparently Marines don't listen to Michael Jackson). Great choice for Abigail, other than it was a duplicate of one she already had and he did his shopping at the Marine base at 29 Palms in California. Figuring the kids give FYE enough business, I did a quick ethical wrangling and decided that since the kids would be purchasing more than the value of the MJ CD, I could live with it. That is until Abigail piped in at the register with "BUT WE DIDN'T BUY IT HERE". The clerk, clearly not the owner, still scowling over the debit machine not working, was so thrilled that I was paying cash that she didn't care one bit.
Digging deeper into the bag of returns, our game plan in each store was simple. I would get in the line with the items to be returned, and the fussy child who didn't like what I had bought would wander the store seeking replacement items while PAYING ATTENTION to when I was close to the front of the line. The wait in line was about 20 minutes per store.
Oh, Hollister. It's like they have a speaker following me around that place. And maybe I'm just very olfactorily sensitive, but I don't know one person who would actually wear as much cologne as is wafting through there. Then there are the props (shutters, plants, surfboards) that are always in the way of moving from one 'department' to another. And Santa was shocked that they don't sell a gift card with a fully-clothed person on it. I wouldn't have bought it except they threw a $25 card in with my pre-Christmas purchases. I thought the gift card looked ok with the Sharpie shirt I drew on the nudie, but none of my fellow family of shoppers did.
So, there I was, holding the three pairs of unsatisfactory pants that Santa himself had chosen for Abigail (11) while she wandered the store with her friend Hailey. Jane (21) kept an eye on them as Erin (7) and I (feeling older by the moment) about sweated to death in line. It's almost my turn. And like Peter Billingsly just as Santa shoves him down the slide with his boot in the Christmas Story movie, the kids were nowhere to be found and I saw my wait was futile--I had no replacement items. Jane reported that she had located Abigail. Whew. Not sure where the friend was, I sent Jane out to find her and report back.
The clerk, who was probably just following the dress code of ALL EMPLOYEES MUST BEAR MIDRIFF, was not interested in my story. I had gotten the gift card for free, but on the receipt it said that the value of the gift card would be pro-rated based on any items returned from the original receipt. This sounded fair to me since if I returned every single item on my original receipt (which I was doing) it didn't seem I should be entitled to the free $25 gift card. No. She would not be fooled by me. She insisted on crediting the full amount of the pants back on my debit card and using the gift card for the replacement item Abigail had chosen (which looked suspiciously similar to several other hoodies she already owned). The receipt was for $75 even, but since the current price of the pants was $80, that's what she had to give me. Not my policy, but theirs. As she was applying the hoodie purchase to the gift card, the clerk ran into an unidentified problem and had to call the manager. This added 5 minutes to my shopping experience, but that was ok since I was looking around anxiously to see if Jane had located our missing neighbor child who might have more items to purchase. The manager showed up, and whew, she was able to clear up to the associate what to do with the 25 cents that was left on the gift card. I waited another 5 minutes for that???
So, after half an hour of loud, smelly, hot and crowded, I had unloaded the three pairs of inferior pants and switched them for a free semi-torn sweatshirt that Abigail thought was an incredible bargain at $24.75 because it SHOULD HAVE BEEN $50 (??? not thinking $50 should ever be the price of a hoodie that looks like it's been floating around in the surf). Hollister--at least it's cheap.
At that moment Jane reappeared and said she found Hailey, AT THE BACK OF THE LINE which now snaked to the front door where Jay would be sitting in those wicker chairs on the store's 'porch' if he wasn't seated comfortably at the movies. Is this porch supposed to remind me of a relaxing vacation spot? Sensing my own impending spontaneous combustion, I shepherded Hailey out of the store and said something to the girls that may have included the word morons, I'm not sure, but I did say she could choose the next store.
Next up, Game Stop. A smaller store with lots of large empty cardboard boxes that are based on real items--all items are kept in a secret secure location not on the display floor. Hailey wanted to use her Christmas money to purchase a game for her Wii. Fair enough. The line was slightly shorter than Hollister, and the loud music was replaced by the sound of video games. No perfume, though. This wait was about 20 minutes, but since I felt bad about the morons comment, I was ok with it. Until we finally made it to the front of the line.
The employee dress code at Game Stop apparently requires nose piercings and those ear stretchers that give me the shivers. The clerk very matter-of-factly said 'Oh, sorry. We're sold out of THAT game'. ??? At that moment I made a choice. I was sure the clerk himself had probably given that answer to several customers during his shift and I wasn't going to be yet another to shoot the messenger. Maybe I should have saved my use of the word 'morons' to comment on their policy that they have all items on display, regardless of whether or not they were available, as part of 'advertising agreements with the game manufacturers'. I told the clerk that I know it wasn't his personal decision, but perhaps he could suggest putting a stickee on the SOLD OUT games.
Caving into the alleged starvation on the part of my fellow shoppers, I headed with my little crowd over to the food court. We settled on Sbarro. As each of the kids in front of me ordered 'slice of cheese, slice of cheese, slice of cheese and slice of cheese', I asked the server about the economics of this. He stated that each piece was $3.75 but I could get a whole pizza (with 8 pieces) for $16, so it was like 'buy one get one free'. I think my brain was up a few degrees because I didn't notice that they actually cut their pizzas into 6 pieces when selling it by the slice, so in reality it was like in This is Spinal Tap where the volume dial is turned up to 11 (I won't explain this, but for those of you who know the movie, you know what I mean). 'Buy one get one free' would only have actually applied if the fractions were the same. However, Jane, the math major in the crowd was off finding us a table, so I quickly paid for the pizza and tried to make a quick end to this shopping experience.
Then, on the way home, I was half on auto-pilot and just followed a long line of cars. Great. Now heading the wrong direction. This added about half an hour to our trip.
The kids had all said 'cash only' this year. Given my love for shopping, the current economic situation and my post-Christmas shopping adventure this year, maybe next year I'll follow those instructions to a T.