Last Tuesday I had to go shopping for new jeans, something most women hate, but it turned into one of the most pleasant shopping experiences I’ve ever had. The Eddie Bauer was pratically deserted (it was a Tuesday night), and a very nice salesgirl gave me exactly the right amount of support and care, without being too pushy or in-your-face. She helped me find the right style and size and told me they looked great (so key to the happy jeans purchase). During checkout she talked me into getting one of their points cards — no cost to me, and, bonus, they keep the card there on file so I don’t need to carry it around in my wallet — so now I’m one step closer to getting free dollars to spend at their store. Oh, and plus, the jeans were on sale. Awesome!

Then today we went to the Toys R Us, and it was one of the worst shopping experiences I’ve ever had. We went there specifically to shop for bikes for Captain Jelly Belly — his grandparents want to get him one for his birthday. This week’s flyer from TRU had a couple models on sale that we were interested in trying out. But when we got there, we found several sales staff pickup up the display bikes and moving them into a “staff only” section at the back of the store. I tried to stop a guy by telling him we were interested in the model he was carrying, and he just said to grab a purchase card from it, and I pointed out we’d like our son to try it out, and he just said, “Sorry,” and continued walking away with it, with no explanation. It turned out that they had been rennovating the store, so the closed off area was newly finished and due to reopen, so they were moving their stock into that area. But why were they moving it during open hours? Why didn’t anyone offer us an explanation? Why were they moving stuff that was specifically featured in this week’s flyer? And Jesus, couldn’t the guy at least have put the bike down for like, 30 seconds, so we could put the Captain on it for a test run?

We were pretty mad but we wanted to look around for some stuff for our nephews, so we stayed, but that added a whole new level of ire. Several teenaged clerks were chatting and/or flirting and completely ignored me when I asked for help finding a few items. When I finally got one guy’s attention he pointed vaguely at an area on the complete other side of the store, then went back to talking up the girl clerk he was clearly much more interested in. Sorry to interrupt, guys! My apologies for actually trying to, you know, SHOP AT YOUR STORE DURING NORMAL BUSINESS HOURS.

I wanted to complain but convinced me to, “Complain with your dollars,” so we just left the store empty handed. But suckage! I’m almost as angry as if I’d stayed up late watching CSI. Geez!