Big W – For Worthless! (17.8.2007)
I hate shopping!
I left work early yesterday – had to get my car registered. So I took off, paid my 600 bucks and stuck my sticker on the window, in the car park. I thought, since I was still early, I might as well go to Casuarina to pick up a few things. I’ve been looking for a DVD version of The Man From Snowy River for years, that being my favourite movie and all. I noticed in a Big W catalogue, which they insist on stuffing into my letterbox every second day, that they had a double DVD set – Snowy River I and II for under 20 bucks! I thought – I’ll grab me one of them.
Last time I’d planned to buy a few DVD’s was when Target had a big sale on – I lobbed down there and all they had left, was the cheap, crap, seventy year old movies! They told me all the others were sold out – I said “Yes – No doubt! That’d be because you only ever buy one friggin item each, of the good movies, which you advertise to suck in all the punters, then hope that they will buy the shit left over, so as not to waste their trip altogether!”
So, in my extra time, I decided I would also buy the new Harry Potter book and an expandable file for all my bills and important documents etc. So, needing 3 different items, pretty much justified the trip out there.
I’m hurtling along Baggot road heading toward Casuarina, at around 80 clicks and I hear a beep-beep coming up next to me. I look around and see my friend Kirstin driving along with Chad in the passenger’s seat – we flashed each other a smile and a wave. I moved to the left hand, gutter lane and Kirstin went to the middle lane, on my right. I had my left arm stretched across the back of the seat and was happily singing along with James Blundell. I had passed Kirstin and was about one third of the way past the silver car in front of her – when this tosser decides to change lanes. He just starts wizzing across into my lane, jamming me up against the gutter – I belt the brakes on and swing the wheel, as my stretching-arm quickly joins the fray. I locked up the brakes and skidded at an angle for about six feet before Tosser-Boy got past and in front of me. I let off the brake and kept driving. Unfortunately, my car horn is inoperable (which really teaches a man patience!), so I couldn’t blast the still oblivious, Tosser-Boy, to hell!
We stopped at a set of lights with Kirstin cruising up and stopping next to the Silver-car’d Tosser – Chad winds his window down and gives the bloke a mouthful, on my behalf. It was pretty funny, as close calls go. I was thinking – Jesus, I’m on my way from paying for another 12 months rego, and nearly wrecked the whole bloody thing within minutes!
So I park the car and get out – a little bit shaky after the traffic incident. Walk my way to Big W – which, of course, is huddled at the furthest corner away from the car park, and head for the DVD section. Once again, I can’t detect any sign of the package I want. I approach the counter and open up their new catalogue, a copy of which was sitting on the bench. I say to the young chippie “How ya goin’? I want one of these”, pointing at the advertised item.
She flicks through a special ‘under-the-counter’ copy of the catalogue – which has big blue crosses through ninety percent of the items, including mine. She says “Yes. See, they’re not available just yet. You’ll have to come back in a few days or something”
I say “But it’s advertised here that you have them – that’s what I came for”.
“Hmmm – yes I know that, but the sale goes for two weeks”
I say “Well, when does it start?”
She says “Today”.
I spread my arms so as to say “Well, I’m here today, the sale is on today, you advertised you will have these things in today, now what’s the freakin problem?!”
“Oh – we actually have them out the back – but there’s half a dozen big pallet loads out there. We haven’t unpacked them yet. You’ll have to come back in a few days”
I said “Last time I tried coming in a few days later, there was only shit left! All the good stuff had been sold out”
“Really? That’s strange”
“Well can you put one aside for me, under the counter or something?”
So she took my details and recorded them, and the item and price, in a little book. It seems I’ll have to go back at some later date.
I was feeling pretty cranky by now, so I decided to head for the book section, pick up my copy and head for home. I did three laps of the book section, with the only Harry Potter story being one on special, from six years ago. I sought out the stringy haired young whippersnapper with a Big W badge, who was lurking around the general section. I said “How ya goin? Do you guys happen to have the latest Harry Potter book?”
He looked around, covered the same ground I’d already been over, and said “I know there was one copy floating around here somewhere. Nah – it looks like we’re sold out.”
I said “Did you guys not think this book might be popular?”
“Oh no – we bought thousands, it’s just that there’s none left”
“Do you not think you should have got some more?”
“Nah – we bought all we could, there were three thousand or something”
I said “Yeah – and there’s none left”
I walked away shaking my head and muttering obscenities.
Then, out of the blue, far, far away from young Stringy-Hair and his book section, there was a big display full of the latest Harry Potter book! Just what the hell it was doing among the undergarments and stationery is beyond me! The book staff are completely unaware of this stash – I don’t know how the hell they expect the shoppers to find it?
Then I went looking for the expandable file – Nil Stock! They have boxes, and ring folders, and lever-arch folders, and manila folders, and coloured files, and hanging files, and filing cabinets, and plastic desk stackers and alphabetised drawers – but not one bloody expandable file!
So I paid for my book and the checkout chick threw in a free copy of a Peter Fitzsimon book, about Les Darcy (The Aussie boxing champ who died of a tooth ache in America when he was only 19).
I then headed for Kmart – looking for the allusive expandable file. Not one on the shelves. I asked an unlikely looking staff member if they had any – and to my great surprise and delight, she knew what I was talking about and even darted out the back and retrieved the very last item of this line that Kmart had in stock! So I grabbed it, paid my six bucks and headed for the car.
…………have I ever mentioned that I HATE SHOPPING!!!!????
On Target To Be Ripped Off (4.6.2007)
Every day I find my letterbox stuffed to the rafters with junk mail, which I usually remove and deposit straight into the garbo, where it belongs. The other day, though, I actually read through the piles of brochures from the usual suspects, including Kmart, Big W, WOW Sight & Sound, Prouds, Dominoes, and Target.
Of interest to me was a special of “25% off men’s pants” advertised in the Target catalogue. I needed a couple of pair of shorts and thought I may as well take advantage of this opportunity.
So on Sunday, I decided to drive the 25k’s down to Palmerston, which is home to my nearest Target store. I looked around a bit, then grabbed my gear and headed to the counter. This included 3 pairs of socks, two pairs of shorts and a pair of jocks. The jocks were a longer-legged variety I’ve not tried before – there were a heap there, so I deduced that there must be quite some demand for the style. I usually just grab a six-pack of briefs and that’ll do me for ages (except last time when some smart-arse swapped a rolled up pair of my size halfway down the pack, for a little kids – which I failed to recognise till I went to wear them!).
I chatted to the checkout chick as she ran my gear through, then she surprised me with the sub-total of seventy four bucks! I took it away and examined the docket – no discount on the shorts and the bloody jocks cost me eighteen bucks! Feeling I’d been ripped, I returned to the Men’s Wear section to check things out – the jocks were indeed eighteen smackers a shot, which is just ridiculous in itself (and they better be bloody comfortable!). Also the ticket price on the shorts was 18 bucks straight up, so they definitely had not given me the discount!
I approached the chippie at the lay-by counter and said – “Hey, I just bought these shorts and they should be 25% off. They charged me full price”
She says she’ll get the bloke that works in the section. So the nineteen year old section-bloke comes over and tells me that the discount is only on long dacks! I say, “No – the add says ‘25% off Men’s Pants’. These are quite obviously pants”.
He says “Um, okay – I’ll get the manager”.
Little Miss Manager is 22years old and tries to tell me that “No – ‘Pants’ means long trousers, not shorts. They’re called ‘shorts’”.
I say – “Okay – look, I’m sure if I wasn’t wearing any pants, I wouldn’t be allowed in your shop! I’m wearing shorts and obviously, I am considered to be wearing pants!”
She argues that “No, you are wearing shorts – if you have a look on the little ticket, it will distinguish between Pants and shorts”
I reply “Well If say to you ‘look at that bloke over there, he’s not wearing any pants!’, you don’t turn around and expect to see some rooster wearing shorts – you expect to see a bloke half dressed!”
She says “Well that’s how we distinguish them in our catalogues, we call them ‘Pants’, so people know it’s long pants and ‘Shorts’ when we have shorts on special”
I said “No – that’s bullshit! You call them ‘Pants’ in your catalogue, so you can rip people off and have them drive 25k’s under false pretences – otherwise, you’d call the trousers, like everyone else in the English speaking world! You know very well that this is misleading and confusing and that is clearly your aim – hoping that once people are here, they’ll buy stuff anyway. We both know it’s a friggin rort and a rip off, pants are pants, and you’re a friggin disgrace!”
With that, I walked away, fuming – I needed the dacks and it cost me time and petrol to drive the 50k round trip, so there was no point in getting my money back and leaving the stuff there, the damage was already done. I’ll be a lot more bloody careful next time though, and Target will remain the last choice for me!