Toys at Local Wal-Mart Grocery Store Continue to Confuse Shopper

I have got to start out by saying: Wal-Mart, get a clue. There, I said it and now I’ll explain it.

So I go to my local Wal-Mart grocery store this morning to pick up some orange juice and other some personal care products. I am not saying which personalized care products I needed, it doesn’t matter. I begin wandering the aisles but can’t find what I am looking for in the usual place. Then I remember, oh yeah, they have been doing a little bit of remodeling for the past year which has cause a little bit of a shuffling around for a few of the products here and there. No big deal. Wrong.

That’s because they shuffle around a lot. I’m sorry, they shuffle around so much that they should pass out maps for easier product location when you walk in the door. But they would have to update the maps, say daily, because someone in that store can’t make up their mind where things should go. Maybe they have a new manager every month with a different marketing style, I don’t know. But I have to say that whoever is remodeling my local Wal-Mart grocery store is no marketing genius. This is not store poll; this is just my unbiased opinion.

Now I am shopping in the area where I used to buy the thing that I am looking for and it’s not there. So I start walking up and down the aisle, and then I walk up and down the adjacent aisle. Nothing. I look on the walls where they have tweezers and nail polish. Hey that’s new…still scanning…nothing. At least nothing I was looking for. I don’t know why but I did this same routine like ten times.

That’s when I stopped to take the picture. Because it just hit me. I was dumbfounded. It just seemed so odd and out of place. The tweezers and other similar beauty products just halt; look at the picture, they just abruptly end along the wall and all of a sudden toys began. At a grocery store? This just seems kind of crazy to me. Where are the rest of the beauty care products? Where in the heck is what I am looking for? They used to have an aisle for these stupid toys. I didn’t get it, I still don’t get it.

This is where my wee little brain just tries to make sense of it all. If I stare at the wall long enough then it just might make sense. It makes me feel better if everything makes sense. Okay, so here goes. I’m getting inside the brain of the marketing genius. I think that he is thinking this: while the mom is picking up a nail file, the kids are picking up a Mr. Potato Head. There, that’s got to be it. The marketing guy just wants to sell more toys…at a grocery store. Got it. Hey kids, see Toy Story 3 and buy your Mr. Potato Head at the Wal-Mart grocery! Doesn’t make very much sense to me but can you spot him in the picture? Mr. Potato Head. He’s right there in the picture next to the purple blob looks like a pile of baby dolls. He’s so cute. Makes sense now, sort of, so I continue shopping. Whew.

Okay, so I finally found what I was looking for, but I almost gave up and went to Walgreens instead because there was no way I was asking anyone in that store for the thing that I had come there to get. Still not saying what it is. And thanks marketing genius, you have now scattered personal care products in the aisles and along the walls in three different locations all down on the left side of my local Wal-Mart grocery store; that’s on the south side of the store if you are direction savvy.

Why Moms and Daughters Should Not Share the Same Bathroom

It’s a little after four A.M. and my daughter is in my bathroom throwing up. No kidding, it's 4 A.M. I am a good mom so I call out to her but she doesn’t answer. I’m kind of glad that she didn’t answer because I hate helping people throw up. I’ve been helping people throw up in the middle of the night for most of my adult life which is a really long time and frankly it makes me sick. Really now I feel sick.

Seriously, my stomach is starting to hurt. I say the stomach cramp prayer: stomach cramps please go away. There is no way to go back to sleep when my stomach hurts and it’s not going to quit hurting till she stops yakking in my bathroom. Great, now I’m nauseous. Now I’m nauseous and I have to pee.

Let me think about this. She has been in my bathroom throwing up which means now I have to clean. I have to clean the bathroom before I can pee. This is sounding like a lot of work to me so maybe I don’t have to pee. Yes I do but I won’t think about it and I’ll just write.

There’s quiet in the house now at 5:30 in the morning. Yep, it’s still the same morning. Peace overcomes the land, it is dark, I even cleaned a little in the bathroom and went to pee and now I feel a tiredness coming on. But now I’m itchy.

Dreamy Outdoor Canopy at Lowe’s Leads to Fantasy Session for Shopper

Don’t you just love shopping at Lowe’s? My husband does. For him it’s like a giant Wal-Mart meets Ace Hardware store. Which makes me wonder if those two stores are actually connected, Wal-Mart and Lowe’s, I mean? Come to think of it, it does seem like every time I see a Lowe’s store there is a Wal-Mart nearby. Hmmmmm. It could be a coincidence. Note to self, check the internet sometime…maybe tomorrow.

Anyway, my husband and I are jetting through the Lowe’s store today and I spy this dark brown canopy and outdoor furniture set up; kind of hard to miss because it was parked right by the entrance door. I pass by it once on the way in but I stopped to give it a second but more thorough exam on the way out.

“Wow, I am liking this. It’s really cool. Not that we can afford it or anything, but this is really nice.” Under the canopy there is wicker type furniture, probably plastic, with comfy cushions and a giant sized grill…my mind immediately goes into dreamland where I see the whole thing set up at my house. Okay scratch that, it’s no good at my house so I make up an imaginary house with a backyard that it would look good in; the kind that backs up to a pond with ducks floating by. I know just the neighborhood.

Next, I pop in an instant family, the kind that likes chillin’ and grillin’ and havin’ fun. I use my own family for this part of the dream sequence because that would just be weird if I fantasized about someone else’s family. I have requirements though, in my dream they are not allowed to talk AND they must get along with each other. Yep, that’s a fantasy.

So there I am standing under the dark brown canopy having my way with my dream when suddenly a thought pops into my head. “Oh no”, I’m thinking, “is it sturdy enough to handle Oklahoma weather?” Bloop, just like that, there goes my perfect fantasy family from my dream. Okay great, well who needs them anyway, I have a house that has a great backyard with a brand new dark brown canopy that might fall over any minute in eighty mile an hour straight lines winds, but it’s all good.

I decide to try to get my perfect little family back into my dream; maybe they can help me hold down the canopy in the all that wind, when another stupid question pops into my head. Now I thinking, “How in the world do you change the cloth roof on the top of this thing; what is that, canvas?” Poof, there goes the rest of it, the dream home, the perfect backyard, the canopy and all. Dang it, I’m back at Lowes.

Why do I have to be so logical all the time? It’s not really logic, you know. It’s really more like a case of ADD but I like to think that I am logical. It’s a dream wrecker. And I thought it would be the kids wrecking my dream. Oh that’s right, they couldn’t speak. Yeah, that part of the dream was kind of good.

So there I am snapped back into reality, still standing under the canopy, still looking up and still thinking, how DO you change that cloth? I’m starting to circle the thing now because I think I can figure it out when I decide to glance around to find my husband. I realize that he’s just standing there staring at me and had apparently been standing there staring at me the whole time I was having my little fantasy session under the canopy.

I ignore him and look back toward the outdoor display but hear a voice calling out, “let’s go, we got what we came for and it wasn’t what you’re lookin’ at”. Okay, he actually didn’t really say anything to me; he just stared at me some more. But I can read him pretty well and that’s what it looked like he was thinking.

Oh well, I guess I took a little too long with the daydreaming but we still had plenty of time to go and pay for the thing that we came to get. Now, I’m home sitting around reflecting back on canopy and the dream and how nice it will be to have that one day. Have what, you might ask? The chillin’ and grillin’ and all children get along, of course. Cookouts and Frisbee are a must but they can be had anywhere. Family is important but I did like that canopy...and the dream home.

Oh by the way, our quest for a new water filtration system for the kitchen sink was successful. We bought the osmosis type even though we don’t know much about it; should have researched it, but we didn’t. Here’s hoping. I’ll let you know.

World’s Worst Bra Shopping Experiences At Victoria’s Secret Could Lead To A Higher Sales Volume

There is nothing I hate more than shopping for a bra at Victoria’s Secret. Well, there probably is, but I find it very difficult to remember what those terrible things might be when my brain becomes suddenly inundated with thoughts of past bra shopping nightmares. In order to help cope with some of this previous shopping trauma, I’ve developed a “don’t think just do philosophy” for shopping; it’s a sort of quick “get in and get out plan of action” that I have for some anxiety causing stores.

Although for Victoria’s Secret, I go a step further. I marry together my plan of action with the “surprise visit strategy”. Not that I am surprising anyone at the store, I just surprise myself. I show up and I’m shopping before I can recall the anxiety that the store personnel had caused me from any prior visits. I know, it seems like a great deal of effort for such a little shopping spree but it works for me. VS causes me anxiety, I admit it. Oh, and if I listen to my mother, then I am always super prepared for my surprise shopping visit because then I will also have the latest Victoria’s Secret coupon for a free panty in my purse.

Okay, I know, it sounds really silly that I would have to actually surprise myself in order to shop for a bra at an upscale bra store in the mall, but shopping for a bra can really suck. Really. Don’t get me wrong, I like the Victoria’s Secret store. It’s is so cute and pink, perfect eye candy, right? It sits in the mall ever so quaint and I want to go in; I want to have fun. It’s expensive. They have French music. They have really cute things. It should be fun to shop at a Victoria’s Secret store. I want to be tempted. So every time I am out cruising the mall with the kids or by myself, I always step in.

Ugh, how soon I forget! And believe me, I forget a lot. It takes just a few feet into the store for me to suddenly remember why I don’t dwell on my visits to a Victoria’s Secret store. Surprise! I can feel the tension mounting. I look around to see judgmental looks from the employees. I know they are judging, you’ll see why in a minute, and then I see the other customers staring. I know those stares, they are a warning that I am about to be approached by a very loud sales girl who will announce to the entire room that I am wearing the wrong bra.

But how can that be, it’s one of your bras Victoria’s Secret! I listen intently to what she is saying but decline the offer to take the newest bra out for a test run. I ask about the bra I am wearing; I don’t know why I do this because I find it to be my biggest mistake. They are probably running a sales contest on the newest bra and here I am asking about the old one. But you know, if they would stop moving the bras around to different areas then I wouldn’t have to ask, now would I?

As I glance about the store trying to lay my eyes on MY choice in bra style, I feel the conversation suddenly shift. I brace myself because I know what follows next: it’s the “you need a different size bra so now we must measure you” speech. Oh, come on! I have only met you a few minutes ago and now you want to measure me? No. I don’t even know you. I want to tell her that we should probably date a few times or share a first kiss in the parking lot or something before I get whisked away to the dressing room and she starts feeling me up. Really!? But I don’t say anything because that would be rude and my kids are probably with me or maybe even my mom so I just keep it to myself…until now.

Besides, it’s not like there is some hot guy with a tape measure waiting for me in the dressing room. I know it’s going to be you with the measuring tape, you, and I really don’t want to be measured by you. I want the bra that I am wearing. I like the bra that I am wearing. I want to look at the same bra in different colors and be happy. See, these are the straps; I even show the straps on the bra that I am wearing so that I will be shown it’s like kind. Besides, I already know my size because I HAVE been measured. As a matter of fact, look again. I am wearing one of your bras right now! See? No? You still want to measure me? You’re killing me Victoria’s Secret!

So I ask you why? Why, Victoria’s Secret? Why must I be measured the moment I walk in? I feel like I’m being attacked. And if I don’t want to be measured right then, why do you desert me? You leave me standing helplessly searching your store for what I want until I succumb to your stupid tape measure. Maybe my bra still fits. Ever think of that? Maybe I wore it out gardening. Maybe I got it all sweaty and dirty and now I need a new one. Maybe I just want an updated pattern like with stripes or a zebra print. Maybe you should put the tape measure down and listen to what I am saying.

Oh well, maybe someone out there in VS land is paying attention or maybe not but here is what really ruins the whole shopping experience for me. You are forgetting to ask probing questions and you are showing no interest in me as a person. Instead I am flooded with assumptions of what you think I need. And if I try to express my shopping desires then now I am arguing bras with the biggest bra expert that ever walked on planet earth. What? You say there is some sort of Bra University that no one knows about and they have secretly awarded you a degree? Really? Now you are telling me that you were crowned bra expert of the year? No! Expert, my foot! Just because the company hands out walkie-talkies and a head set to wear on your head does not make you an expert. I know. I have a head set and I am an expert at absolutely nothing, except being treated like crap at the VS store.

I really do try hard to be nice to the sales people at the VS store but they just suck the fun right out of the whole shopping experience. Sometimes it only takes about ten minutes in their store and I am ready to leave the mall. And I’m telling you, it’s hard enough to get a teenager to leave those cute little bras and panties behind, let alone leave an entire mall. But she finally does because I usually promise her that we will just go to another VS store at a different mall; but we don’t. Why go through the agony.

Now I’m NOT saying don’t shop at Victoria’s Secret. Geez, Louise, Please! I shop there. Every bra I own is from there and I have a lot of bras, believe me. I’ll probably always shop for bras at VS because I like the product, but I don’t always buy something from them every time I visit even though I really, really, want to. The point that I am trying to make is that I would shop there more often if I was treated better. And I speak for the various women in my life like my sisters, my daughters, and my mom when I say that we would even buy from your store more often if we were treated better. Hey Victoria’s Secret, if you can get me to walk into your store, why not sell me something? I know, I know, it’s a lot to take in. But I think you need to know all of this; you have a lot of stores.

The bottom line here is you need your sales to be combined with a little customer service. I don’t think that it is too much to ask for since you are in the retail sales business. And no, I do not expect you to go overboard by learning my name and calling out to me every time I enter the store like they did for Norm on the set of Cheers. But, a smile and a warm greeting would be a great way to start. And stop trying to get me into the dressing room to measure me all the time. It’s creepy.

So take or leave this advice Victoria’s Secret salespeople, it’s up to you. Learn something from my world’s worst bra shopping experiences; it might just help to increase the sales for your store. Take heed with your customers. Treat everyone like they are your best friend or someone you care about. Greet each customer like you are glad to see them even if you’re not. Be respectful and seem interested in their stupid conversations. Befriend each customer for just a few brief moments and they might just return. Note to Victoria’s Secret sales people: return sales customers are a good thing. And really, all you have to do is try.

Starting A Blog: My Second Post In The New Adventure Land Known As Blogging

I want to blog about starting a blog but the whole thing turned out to be so exasperating. I guess because it took all day. It probably shouldn’t have but then I usually take something easy and make it really hard for no good reason.

It wasn’t exactly the writing part that was so hard; that I love. I’ve got lots to say and no one to say it to. That’s where you come in. You are reading my lovely run on sentences and now you are probably exasperated that you are still reading. Join the exasperation club but keep reading; it might get better.

And it really wasn’t the part when you pick the site and set it up for the first time; that was just time consuming, again because I made it hard. What do I name it? What do I call it? When all along I had the name picked out a month ago and no one will really care any way, except me.

It was the part when I went to post my very first post, a love letter to my addiction. That’s when I found out that the paste feature does not work in blogger when copying a document from Microsoft Word. No kidding. I had just typed over 900 words, just a warning in case you haven’t read it, and no way to paste these newly formed words into place.

I was going to call my son to whine and complain that the site he told me to sign up with sucked, sorry Blogger.com but I was getting a little frustrated. Then I realized that it was late, not for the party-goer types but for army guys half way across the country in a different time zone ahead of mine that get up before the sun, the farmers, and the roosters.

So since I am a never-take-no-for-an answer type of girl, I researched the internet and did whatever other bloggers were saying would work on the blogger help site but it didn’t help. There didn’t seem to be any way around this copy-paste issue. I think that their suggestions were good but not for everyone, especially me, so I kept searching and trying. Meanwhile all I could think was that I was going to chicken out of this whole blogging thing if I couldn’t post my piece soon.

Anyway, I finally came across this suggestion that I didn’t think really applied to my situation at first so I passed over it. Actually I passed over it a couple of times, you would too if you didn’t know what IE 8 meant, but then I thought about it and examined the passage more closely. Here’s what it said:

I was just playing around with this very issue and in another thread somebody mentioned that it happened when they got IE, That got me thinking IE 8 which could have been the problem my customer was having because we had upgraded. So I tried to run blogger.com in compatibility mode and it worked as before. There are a couple of ways to get this to happen but one is to go to the Tools Menu then click on Compatibility View Settings and add blogger.com to the list. Hopefully it works for you.

It’s like I had just been hit in the head with a birthday gift. IE 8 is Internet Explorer 8; I have that! I sat there stunned because there was no way it was that easy. A couple clicks, a little typing and then I would be posting? No way after all that I had been through. I still sat there staring at this guy’s post contemplating my overwhelming cyberspace issue and whether to try something else first. Again, I’m thinking, it’s got to be harder than this.

As you can see it all turned out happily. Blogger and Microsoft Word are now compatible on my computer and my first post was uploaded five minutes after I fixed my IE 8 problem; I like saying that, IE 8. Maybe if I say it enough then I won’t forget the next time I see it. But for now I conclude my second post about starting a blog in the new adventure land known as blogging.

I would like to thank chesterqualls who ever you are because you care enough to fix people’s problems even though you don’t know who they are.

A Love Letter To My Addiction

a love letter to my addiction

I am so enamored with your presence that I can hardly speak the words to express my love and devotion to your form. I think of you night and day and can barely be apart from your sweet tempting taste that when you are finally near, I become wildly excited. I realize that without you the world would not be the same, but I cannot bear that there may be others that crave you the same way. You are mine and always will be. I am statically yours.

I wrote that one night when, in the middle of my menstrual cycle, I ran out of chocolate. If you are female then you should automatically know how it feels to be on your cycle and addicted to chocolate at the same time, but if you don't then all the power to you. I, for one, have a host of addictions, none of them illegal of course, but most have to do with sugar.

Anyway, over the years I have found through examination of my own psyche that the craving for an existing but non-present thing can be truly overwhelming. I have found that a single thought, such as chocolate, can overpower my mind causing want to overcome willpower. In most cases, if the desire for the thing that I am craving is not there, then my mind starts screaming, if you can't duplicate then replicate.

So, what did I do you might ask. Well, I wrote myself a love letter to chocolate first hoping that it would somehow satisfy some part of the craving. It didn't work. And why would it, expressing my love so passionately for a non-existing food product that I was craving at that very moment just made the craving even worse. Deep down I knew that this would be the case but I just had this overwhelming urge to write out my feelings, not that chocolate would care, but so that I could examine more closely how deeply I really care, and apparently I care a lot.

So I call out from my bed, and this is where having other females in the house can be extremely useful, does anyone have any chocolate? I wait; there is total quiet within the house. Perfect. A non answer means yes by the way in case you are male and don't understand the system, so I have to go for a visit. Of course I head to my youngest daughter's room immediately and am quickly led away from her room to the kitchen because like all sneaky females, you don't let mom in your room and you don't give up your stash, of chocolate of course, I hope my kids are not stashing anything else.

Deep in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator is where she finds a bag of Nestle Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips! Home run you might claim but that is again probably because you are a guy; not so says my brain. So I am standing there, in the kitchen, holding the bag of chocolate chips in one hand and a handful that I just poured out in the other when my daughter deserts me. Not my problem, she claims. Boom, she’s gone. And why not leave? She had done a wonderful thing, even more wonderful if she had just shown me her stash, but still wonderful. She had found me chocolate. I, however, am left standing very much alone in a cold dark kitchen and still very much unsatisfied.

Looking around I realize that my mind is trying desperately to duplicate-replicate the exact chocolate experience that I had in the bedroom. I know that sounds weird, I should have left the bed-bedroom part out of this story but there it is, that's where I have most of my chocolate experiences, in the bedroom in bed. Oh, and if you have never been desperate, then I applaud you.

So back on subject, how did I replicate Hershey Dark Chocolate Peanut M and M's? Well, my first thought was that I had to hurry because the chocolate chips were melting in my hand. As I stood staring at the melting chips, it hit me. I realized that I have the semi sweet part right because it duplicates the dark chocolate perfectly. But where is the salt and crunch? Make a batch of cookies? Takes too long. Microwave popcorn? In the cabinet too long, note to self, throw that out. And then there it is, sitting in front of me the whole time, Lay's Baked Potato Chips. I pull a broken chip out of the bag only to stare longingly at it while I say the potato chip prayer: please don't be stale; please don't be stale. And it's good, a chocolate and potato chip mashup! Wow, yet another satisfying moment in the life of yours truly.

Now the point to my long somewhat humorous and if I might say entertaining story, and yes there are points to most of my stories because I have children I feel points are necessary. My point is that my short-lived chocolate addictions are fine; I embrace them. You can too if you want but I don’t know you so use your own discretion. And that sometimes replication can be just as good as the real thing. Ok, I said sometimes.

My child ditching me in the middle of a crisis, well that's another story, now isn't it.