Shopping Tales

Went to Barnes and Noble the other day to buy a book. It listed on their online store at $36, and when I found it rather easily in the real store, I headed straight to the checkout. Where it promptly rang up at over $50. I did the embarrassing thing of telling the guy that I didn't want it if it were that much, and then explaining that it listed online for cheaper. And he was just like, yeah it does that sometimes. So I'll be filing away the fact that the store is selling the book for $15 more if you buy it in person than if you buy it via internet. I'd prefer internet shopping anyway.

I then went to JCPenney, where the lady in front of me was buying about 25 items of children's clothing. And each one had to be taken off of it's hanger and folded before the cashier would ring them up. About every 5th item, the woman would look at and decide she didn't want. She then informed the cashier that she needed an individual gift receipt for every item. By this point there were at least a dozen people in line behind me, and her order hadn't even been started. The cashier convinced her that rather than ring up and pay for every item separately, they could do them all together and then print off multiple gift receipts. So I waited as they did that, and then the 25 gift receipts printed off one by one. I'm not exaggerating when I say it took over 15 minutes to check this woman out.

Then when it was my turn, I walk up, put my 2 shirts on the counter, and she starts ringing them up. The lady behind me in line walks up and stands next to me and puts her purse down on the counter next to my stuff. She then proceeds to talk loudly to her friend in another line, while to the observer it would look like she and I were together. Anyone knowing my personal space issues can just imagine how uncomfortable I was, especially when she was so close, the cashier almost gave my credit card back to her thinking it was me. When I went to sign the receipt, I had to move the lady's stuff over so that I could have room to write. Under normal circumstances, I probably would have said something about how rude she was being, but this was the female version of Refrigerator Perry, only more obnoxious and overbearing, and I was hoping to get out of there with my life. Whatever happened to common courtesy?