A vision of hell
I submit as evidence that I love my daughter that I tolerated almost a half an hour in a Toys 'R Us the other day.
Toys 'R Us and big box stores like it are, for me, a vision of hell. Big, noisy spaces lit with headache-inducing fluorescent lights. PAs crackling constantly overhead, noisily enough that it's effectively impossible actually to talk to anyone—particularly for us folk whose voices, being both low and soft, don't particularly cut through a din. And, most annoyingly of all, big, slow-moving folk everywhere, clogging the aisles (not unlike the cholesterol presumably clogging their arteries), making actually getting through the place with any dispatch effectively impossible. I'm a tall guy, normally walk pretty quickly—but in a place like that, if I were to try to move with anything like my normal speed, it would be one long collision—me pushing an ever-growing raft of the stunned and dazed into a massive logjam—a tangled mass of arms, legs and coathangers piling up somewhere in infant clothing...
Seriously, after ten minutes in the place, I'm experiencing violent impulses. The palaeolithic part of my brain is coming up with various brute force solutions to the problem. A club. Mebbe a big chunk of bone from a mastodon or something. And if the two three-foot-wide guys standing there in the middle of the aisle discussing the relative merits of the KFC fifteen piece versus the twenty piece meal don't understand 'excuse me', well, it ain't like they couldn't see I was packing...
For just these reasons, I don't darken the doors of places like these too frequently. But there's no way 'round it, on this occasion. You can't get the bicycle the little one wants in most (usually relatively quiet, nicely lit) bike shops. The nice people who sold Daddy his 6V lighting system and other such hardware don't carry the 'My Little Pony' 16" model. So here we are.
The (relatively) happy ending: we get out of the place without Daddy acquiring a criminal record or anyone being hospitalized. The little one loves her new bicycle, proudly and happily rides it to school the next day. Coulda been worse, I guess.
But, just in case any wannabe big box retail folk are reading, just an opinion: if you actually want me ever to enter your establishment other than at the point of a gun (or under the threat of a crying four-year old), here are a few things to try:
Halogen lighting. No PA (I dunno how you talk to the staff—wireless, phones, maybe? Must be something that works; Chapters manages). And keep the aisles a bit bigger, so I can get past the guys who only browse under the influence of Valium without actually sending them spinning sideways into your lovingly assembled displays of Star Wars spin-off merchandise.
Just a few suggestions, with my compliments.
Toys 'R Us and big box stores like it are, for me, a vision of hell. Big, noisy spaces lit with headache-inducing fluorescent lights. PAs crackling constantly overhead, noisily enough that it's effectively impossible actually to talk to anyone—particularly for us folk whose voices, being both low and soft, don't particularly cut through a din. And, most annoyingly of all, big, slow-moving folk everywhere, clogging the aisles (not unlike the cholesterol presumably clogging their arteries), making actually getting through the place with any dispatch effectively impossible. I'm a tall guy, normally walk pretty quickly—but in a place like that, if I were to try to move with anything like my normal speed, it would be one long collision—me pushing an ever-growing raft of the stunned and dazed into a massive logjam—a tangled mass of arms, legs and coathangers piling up somewhere in infant clothing...
Seriously, after ten minutes in the place, I'm experiencing violent impulses. The palaeolithic part of my brain is coming up with various brute force solutions to the problem. A club. Mebbe a big chunk of bone from a mastodon or something. And if the two three-foot-wide guys standing there in the middle of the aisle discussing the relative merits of the KFC fifteen piece versus the twenty piece meal don't understand 'excuse me', well, it ain't like they couldn't see I was packing...
For just these reasons, I don't darken the doors of places like these too frequently. But there's no way 'round it, on this occasion. You can't get the bicycle the little one wants in most (usually relatively quiet, nicely lit) bike shops. The nice people who sold Daddy his 6V lighting system and other such hardware don't carry the 'My Little Pony' 16" model. So here we are.
The (relatively) happy ending: we get out of the place without Daddy acquiring a criminal record or anyone being hospitalized. The little one loves her new bicycle, proudly and happily rides it to school the next day. Coulda been worse, I guess.
But, just in case any wannabe big box retail folk are reading, just an opinion: if you actually want me ever to enter your establishment other than at the point of a gun (or under the threat of a crying four-year old), here are a few things to try:
Halogen lighting. No PA (I dunno how you talk to the staff—wireless, phones, maybe? Must be something that works; Chapters manages). And keep the aisles a bit bigger, so I can get past the guys who only browse under the influence of Valium without actually sending them spinning sideways into your lovingly assembled displays of Star Wars spin-off merchandise.
Just a few suggestions, with my compliments.
posted by AJM at 10:19 a.m. (Permanent Link)
