Of Cats and Kids

Online shopper ventures into local retail store; stress ensues

Posted by: Carol Lombardi

Monday, November 26, 2007 11:30 AM

Well in advance of our yearly editorial on why to shop locally instead of online, I shopped locally. On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, no less. Some appliances I wanted were 20% off, with free delivery if I got to the store by noon on Saturday. It was a good deal.

My little holiday shopping adventure reminded me why I tend to shop online. It's the salespeople. I was willing to wait 15 minutes for the person I wanted to deal with, but some testosterone-hyped sales guy just couldn't resist trying to nudge in on someone's commission while managing to offend me nearly to the point of driving me out of the store.

I was and am completely unable to shake the feeling that he was practicing his dumb single-chick sales pitch. I know that for some this hunch automatically brands me as a bra-burning, Hillary-supporting, feminazi. They are entitled to their wrong opinions. Whatever.

In the past couple years I have gone through this with buying a washer and dryer, putting new windows in my house and trying to get an estimate on getting my house painted. (The house is still not painted.) In trying to force people to take my money for home improvement projects, I have more conversations about my marital status than I have about the projects.

Obviously my failure to have a man in tow while making a significant purchase is a real problem, and speaks to the generally inadequate nature of my intellect and, indeed, my entire existence. On occasions when I grab a guy and make him shop with me, the experience is drastically different. At one point I sent a guy with to the paint store by himself to get my questions answered, and he came back not only with the answers I was unable to get but with a printout explaining the details.

All I gleaned Saturday from the guy trying to force a "protection agreement" down my throat is that he is selling products that he expects to fail, from a company that apparently wouldn't repair a defective product for free simply because it is the right thing to do. I am wondering if this is the image that Kenmore really wants.

The fact that this guy just replaced every appliance in his house and bought "protection agreements" for all of them also tells me that he is an idiot. I mean sell them, if you must make a living, but if you really think they're not good for more than a year, don't buy them yourself. Maybe he needs a woman to show him how to shop.

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