More Retail Exercise

[kevin_standlee]

We went to Valley Fair Mall today, braving the holiday traffic that included about a mile of traffic backed up on I-880 south trying to get in. And in the four-story parking garage, cars tying up traffic as they hovered over people slowly getting into their cars to leave. When the traffic allowed, I drove up to the top deck, where I had a football field all to myself, or so it seemed.

The places was crowded as all get-out of course, and the stores were jammed, but it wasn't as unpleasant an experience as I thought it would be, partially because we encountered a bunch of genuinely friendly and helpful salespeople in the stores in which we were shopping. I was pleased; Cheryl was astonished, as she contrasted the attitude to what she would have expected to find back in the UK. Even I was surprised a bit, as this time of year is so busy that one who has worked in retail (as I have; I was assistant manager of a comic book store for several years) can forgive people for being a bit rushed and short. Yet we met a lot of people today who worked very hard to find us the things for which we were looking. I was really sorry that in one store we ended up buying nothing, despite the girl trying so hard -- they simply didn't have anything in Cheryl's size.

Anyway, it took so long to work our way through Valley Fair -- and we were up so late last night and accordingly up so late this morning -- that the rest of our schedule was abandoned for the day. Sunday, originally scheduled for little activity, gets to be the make-up day for the remaining shopping.

Cheryl has asked me what I'd like for a Christmas gift. I've suggested a card-shuffling machine, although it's likely to only get used once a year at SMOFCon. It might well speed up the games, given the number of people who don't have sufficient manual dexterity to shuffle cards.

Now we're watching England see if they can pull off a miracle in the Ashes 3rd Test.

Comments

[wild-patience.livejournal.com]

Oo, I drove past Valley Fair yesterday, leaving my mother's place. She lives very near it. (Her toenails had gotten quite long so I'd taken her for a pedicure. The pedicurist always makes her wince with pain, though, doing the full pedicure. From now on, I think I'll just cut and paint my mother's toenails myself.) Driving down Forest Ave., the far side, I could see how full the parking lot was and yet how many cars were still waiting to turn into it. Brrr!

I have to go there myself. I got a Hanukkah gift that I want to exchange, and it has the closest Nordstrom's. As I'm taking Thursday off work, I'm hoping it will be slightly less crowded then than on the weekend.