Monday, September 17, 2007

An Open Letter

Dear crappy discount store,

If you don't trust me with your stuff, why on Earth should I trust you with mine? Also, the statement "you have to leave your backpack here" is both rudely phrased and demonstrably false. I do not have to do anything, including shop at your crappy store.

No love (and no money),
Me

13 comments:

  1. What crappy discount store was this? Your adoring fans want to know! :)

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  2. What amazes me is that Albertson's is the only store I have seen to get the notice for their "express" checkout lanes correct: Ten items or fewer.

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  3. Captain C: Do you mean instead of "ten items or less"
    I'm not a grammar guru so I didn't know that was wrong.

    Also,I don't know if you guys have Izzy's restaurants where you are, but they're like one of those buffet places. They have kids cups and they say "Kid's love Izzy's" It driving me freaking nuts. Ok my punctuation grammar on this blog suck, but I'm not printing on a cup!!!!!!

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  4. Yeah, what Benson said!

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  5. I'm guessing Wal-Mart 'cause that's about the only store in Socorro (unless you're talking really crappy, like Family Dollar or Dollar Tree).

    Obviously, they don't know that you brought the backpack expressly for carrying your purchases home without wasting either a petroleum-derivative or a tree-killing sack, right?

    Kathy: "Ten items or less" (which is incorrect) was the pet peeve of Mrs./Dr. Lyons in 10th grade. I guess you didn't have her for English?

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  6. Benson: Captain C is correct. It was Wal-Mart. Is "discount store" the right phrase for a Wal-Mart? I was looking for something that meant "store that sells a lot of crap and whose big selling point is their supposed low prices."

    Captain C: Wow, I don't think I've ever actually seen a store that got the "ten items or fewer" thing right! Although that one is not a big peeve of mine at all. "Ten items or less" is, I admit, somewhat easier to say, and the meaning is clear enough.

    Kathy: Aargh, there's nothing that irritates me as much as those rampaging apostrophes. We do not have Izzy's here, but we do have plenty of other people who can't punctuate. There are certain places where, every time I walk in, I want to whip out a magic marker and start correcting their signs.

    Captain C again: Yeah, it was the Wal-Mart. Although it's not true enough that they're "the only store in Socorro" for them to act like it. Most of what I needed, I bought at the grocery store instead, and the rest I decided I could do without. (And there is a Family Dollar, too, down at the far end of the crappy discount scale.)

    I had the backpack because I walked to the store, and I thought I might buy more than I could comfortably carry in my hands. Americans, though, seem to have difficulty wrapping their brains around the idea of people who walk. The only reason someone would have a backpack is to stash stolen goods in, right? It can't possibly be because they want to buy things from you and then carry them home. If they wanted to to that, they'd bring a car!

    (Don't even get me started on how that Wal-Mart parking lot seems to be deliberately set up to be annoying to pedestrians...)

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  7. Captain C: I did have Dr. Lyons for 10th grade English!! I don't remember her ever saying that. I do remember her always correcting anyone who called her Mrs Lyons rather than Dr Lyons hehehehe.

    Betty:Since when did Socorro get a Wal-Mart!!!

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  8. A couple of years ago. It was the most exciting thing to happen here in ages. Or at least since the freak hailstorm of '04.

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  9. Betty, I'm with you on the Wal-Mart distaste. I own stock in the company, so I appreciate loads of Americans shopping there, but I won't go there myself. Since the store is so popular, all the crazy and idiot drivers on the road are concentrated in the parking lot (and the aisles inside).

    Hmm, I really need to find that bit of a story about "people with cars" vs. "people without cars". (You and I, naturally, are anomalies because we are "people with cars" who behave more like "people without cars".)

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  10. I'm not actually as down on Wal-Mart as a lot of people are, and it is really convenient having one in Socorro, because there aren't a whole lot of shopping alternatives within reasonable distance. But, man, sometimes they do piss me off.

    Hmm, I really need to find that bit of a story about "people with cars" vs. "people without cars".

    Which story is this? I am interested.

    (You and I, naturally, are anomalies because we are "people with cars" who behave more like "people without cars".)

    Yeah, folks just don't seem to quite be able to wrap their brains around that at all. At least people have long since quit asking me if my car was broken and gotten used to the bizarre idea that, no, I'm walking by choice.

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  11. "Calvin, what do you think people have feet for?" --"To work the gas pedal." (Calvin & Hobbes)

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  12. Ray Bradbury rarely wrote true SF as opposed to fantasy, but his short story "The Pedestrian" - written in the 1950s, I think - has an errie prescience.

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  13. You know, I was more than half waiting for you to pop up and recommend that story again. :) It's way too relevant, IMO.

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