December 17, 2006

Dicked around

I have a couple of things I want to post about, but I'll focus on the most recent first.

Yesterday we went out to buy a new DVD player, since our ~3-yr-old one is crapping out. We went to one of the only media stores in town - a local business (not a big-box store). All three of us went, and we looked at the DVD players and we found the one we wanted, but it had no price sticker on it. This place is basically a showroom, so there aren't boxes there that you can just take to a cash register. So, we stood around waiting for a salesperson to help us. Many other people were being helped. We waited. New people came in, stood right next to us, and got helped. None of the salespeople stopped to help the young couple with a baby.

We stood around for 10 to 15 minutes while others around us got helped. Neither of us was in the mood to push ourselves on the salespeople - feeling as if it is their job to sell to us. However, none of them wanted to deal with us. After about 15 minutes we got annoyed and walked out. I was royally pissed off! We must have talked for the next 20 minutes about how the salespeople were perfectly willing to help the customers who looked like they were ready to spend hundreds of dollars as opposed to a maximum of 100 dollars, and who didn't have any babies in tow. I was even saying, "So much for supporting local businesses!" Usually I attempt to support the smaller locals instead of the big-box stores. I do go to Target quite often, but we try to go to the locally-owned grocery stores, and we go to the local butcher shop, etc. But the electronics store is one local business that I am NEVER patronizing. Seldom have I felt so discriminated against.

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