When it’s Advantageous to be 280lbs plus

I don’t shop for clothes much. In fact, I don’t shop much in general. But when I do, I have a complex about spending more than I feel is fair for an item. So on those rare clothes shopping occasions, my first, and usually only stop is in the clearance area (because come on, a “graphic t-shirt” shouldn’t cost $18). You can be guaranteed two things when browsing in this section.

1. The area is a disaster of clothes
2. For every medium sized article, there are 50 XXL. For every pair of size 32 pants, there are 20 pairs of 44×32 pants

I’m tired of being discriminated against in the clearance section. Why don’t they order more medium sized clothes and less extra large? It seems like they have the demand for the medium size clothes, since there are hardly any left for clearance. Instead, they run out of mediums and are overstocked with XXL. Come on. This may cause there to be less in the clearance area, but it can’t be any worse than it is now.

Grocery Store Checkout Lane Invention

As grocery stores have yet to convert to the first come first serve single queue lines like you see in a bank, it’s time for a new addition to the checkout lane. Atop each cashier, a digital display should display the employees throughput. Perhaps one stat would be the number of items scanned per minute, another being the number of guests processed per hour. These cues would help you pick lanes based on the employees efficiency. There’s nothing worse than having to choose between three lanes all with 2 people in them, and then watch as the other two lanes are processed twice as fast as yours.

IKEA Aroma

IKEA is one of those stores with it’s own distinguishable aroma. Others have one, but most of the time it’s a Hollister or Abercrombie pumping cologne into the ventilation system. IKEA’s smell is pure in the scents (sense, get it?) that it is a combination between the smell of the products and the food they serve. It’s an interesting combination though; cheap particle board and cinnamon rolls.

I have to hand it to IKEA though, they do a good job of getting that cinnamon smell into the last 10 aisles of the store so you are nice and hungry by the time you checkout.

California ‘Dollar’ Store

So I’ve been in CA for a few days and pretty much everything is fairly similar here, bar the 50 cent increase in gas prices and the endless signs about causes of cancer.   Anyway, while driving I noticed California’s version of the Dollar Store.  They are called Dollar Quarter stores.  Everything is $1.25 instead of $1 like the dollar stores we are used to in the midwest.

Signs of things to come?  Hopefully not.  Dollar Quarter is a terrible name.

10% Discount

10% off is not a “sale”. I’m tired of stores in which every rack has a SALE sign with 90% of those signs reading 10% off. 10 percent matters on purchases of $1,000 or more.

A Routine-less Day

I had last Friday off in order to get ready for some guests coming for the weekend. In the morning, I ran to a couple stores looking for some new sheets for the guest bed. I was BLOWN AWAY by the number of women I saw out shopping at 9:30. Almost all of them were in jogging suits and it was eerily quiet as the women riffled through racks, bins and displays. I was literally the only male in three of the stores I visited that morning. I was also probably the only person under the age of 30.

I wonder how many of the husbands of these women knew their day was filled with shopping while they were, presumably, at work.

My suggestion to you is to pick a random day and do something out of the ordinary for you. It’s interesting to see what makes up others routine.

Infuriating Shopping

BONUS — DOUBLE REALIZATION

I went to a brand new Wal-Mart Super Center today and it was packed. As I walked in the door, I turned to grab a shopping cart – not one in sight. In turned around to find that the other cart corral was empty as well. NOT ONE CART, anywhere! So I walked down to the other end of the store, same result.

Realization #1: If you have parking spaces for 1000 cars, you should have 1000 carts. I shouldn’t have to go back into the parking lot to find one for myself (which I did, the first cart corral was empty as well).

Also, with 26 checkout lanes, you would think that with less than three weeks until Christmas on a Saturday afternoon, you would have as many lanes as possible open. When, if not today, would all 26 lanes be available for checkout? If most of them were open, I’d have less of an issue, but there were less than half available – a whopping 12.

Realization #2: If you’ve got the lanes, shorten the lines.