COLUMN: A journey into the retail world
First and foremost, I sincerely hope all of my readers – you’re commonly known as “Schwartzheads” in case you were curious – had an immensely enjoyable and entertaining Spring Break.
The highlight of my week off was an afternoon trip to Best Buy. But trust me when I tell you this specific trip was quite the doozy.
How much of a doozy, you ask? I’ll phrase it like such: It was a trip to Best Buy. Yeah, that insane.
In all my vast experience, knowledge, innate skill and copious amounts of Tae-Bo sessions, I know in my heart at least one thing about Best Buy. That is, no well-functioning human being can complete a Best Buy trip in less than four hours. It’s like a high-definition universe of Pokemon, and every customer is Ash Ketchum.
My trip seemed to be a basic excursion. I wanted buy a camcorder to start work on my upcoming YouTube channel (shameless plug coming soon).
I spent well over a week shopping for products online in an effort to check out all of the different “specs” the technology world had to offer. Surprisingly enough my search finished once I realized “specs” had nothing to do with eyeglasses. I selected my future recording device of choice, grabbed Richard, my adventure buddy for the day, and we made our way off to the all-things-flashy wonderland nested under the majestic giant yellow price tag.
We walked in and met Zach. I know his name well, because in the next 60 minutes we got to know each other well enough to almost be considered blood brothers. I told him the exact product I was looking for and he spared no time in getting me to the item while doing his courtesy gesture of offering every item in the store that was at least 11 times more expensive than what I was looking for. What a charmer. We sat and hoped his verdict went our way.
Eureka, they had one in stock. He reached under the shelf to grab the item for me, gave a confusing look, stood up and said, “I can’t find it anywhere. Let me check our inventory.”
This should have been my first warning, as I didn’t learn until just recently that “check inventory” was Best Buy language for either “consulting with our managers to see to it you stay in this lobby as long as feasibly possible” or “eat a nectarine.”
He checked the inventory. Couldn’t find it. He checked another inventory at another point in the store. No dice. Richard was pretty positive he saw him skidoo with the dog from “Blue’s Clues” into a world of basic shapes and multiplication tables and still no sign of life. He was left with only one choice. He had to give me the display item, and that meant a mark down for yours truly. Perhaps I had won this battle after all.
Then came the shocker, as Zach – loyal, determined, stalwart Zach – just wouldn’t go down without a fight, because he had lost the display box in one of the magical, possibly imaginary, definitely guarded by David Bowie super inventories where display boxes go to die, and all Richard and I could do was wait.
And wait.
And wait.
You get the idea.
It was around hour six when we saw her, the preteen girl mischievously brandishing four Jonas Brothers albums and, prepare to gasp, the very camera box we were looking for. We had to make sure at first by splitting up and passively stalking her around the store, which must have been a riot to security camera viewers.
We were about to make a desperation move to coerce the young mind to hand over the camera and settle for a Sony Vaio and strawberry cake frosting when, much to our chagrin, her evil meddling mother showed up and destroyed our operation. You never mess with a mother at a retail store – it’s like trying to feed a wounded leopard.
Finally, after three nights of camping in the home phone section (surprisingly people don’t go there much) and befriending several technology connoisseurs named Devin, we agreed to simply wait for the item to be delivered to the store in a week.
And there it was, my quest to infiltrate Best Buy and avoid chronic pestering from the employees to over-spend, by simply walking away purchasing my desired camera.
I suppose they were able to get me to buy that camera case, tripod, nine SD cards, a laptop computer, stock options with BF Goodrich Tires, a Ford Taurus and 14 packages of ham and cheese Hot Pockets. But hey, at least they couldn’t swindle me into buying one of their overpriced candy bars. I’m a generous shopper, but I’m no menace.
– steve.schwartzman@aggiemail.usu.edu