jere7my | All in all, it's just another day at the mall

The cat is collared. The cat is not happy about it. She keeps getting her lower jaw stuck beneath the collar, and spends many angry moments trying to chew the ID tag off. Since the ID tag is the whole point of the collar, I'm not thrilled with either development, but since she isn't either I suppose that's fair dinkum. Still, the collar is a handsome red, and it looks lovely against her black and white fur. She'll get used to it. And she has a nice new toy (a fuzzy ring-shaped hedgehog sort of thing, which she can wrap all four paws around and claw the imaginary guts out of), a cat carrier, and forty pounds of kitty litter, which I lugged across two huge parking lots while the sky flung bits of ice at me.

K. and I went shopping tonight, as you may have guessed. I've essentially finished my Christmas shopping, and K. is much farther along than she was. I'm pleased with my purchases. Some of them, being Chanukah gifts (my first ever), have already been well-received, and I have high hopes for the rest. Ohio shopping malls are madness: acres of open parking lots, as empty-crowded as railroad freightyards, and the stores scattered across the horizon-spanning asphalt like train cars. There are no civil engineers in Ohio, apparently; they seem to have dropped the rows of stores from above like giant pick-up sticks. We troop doughtily from one to the next, attempting to deduce which bits are parking lot and which are Route 57 from the traffic patterns.

They've started being tricksy here about making people use their check cards for debit (for which we pay the fee) instead of credit (for which they do): once you swipe your card, you need to cancel the transaction to be given the option of choosing credit. This is in no way evident from the little LCD screen, and the clerks are clearly getting tired of constantly telling people that they need to take the counterintuitive step of hitting "CANCEL." They're also getting tired of asking us whether we want our receipts "with us" or "in the bag", which continues to baffle me. Does anyone care? This seems like another pointless entry in the ever-lengthening customer "service" litany which we're forced to endure before we can scurry away from the counter, like "Paper or plastic?" (which has become "Plastic okay?") and "Can I get your phone number?" (which is never a flirtation).

I seem to have Scrooged myself up here. Hm. I have presents for people, and I love giving people presents. Hooray! The cat has resigned herself to the collar (for now). Wizard! And you can peek at my icon for the latest entry in my Advent Calendar of Christmasized Friends' Icons. Ho ho ho!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ah! You took the best one! ^.^

::giggles::

I care where the receipt is. If it's in my wallet, i'll enter it when i clean out my wallet. If it isn't in my wallet, i'll forget, and when i try to reconcile my credit card statement, i'll say, "Waah, where did that charge come from?"

Arguably, "does anyone care?" is a dangerous question. :>)

That's just what I was thinking.

Okay, fine. Silly people care. :) But do you care enough that you want to hear it every time you buy something? I mean, the distance between my hand and the bag is only a couple of feet; the salespeople must burn more calories asking me than I would burn fetching it out of the bag.

Wow, you mean you guys haven't had the "hit cancel for credit" protocol in the Midwest before now? It's been standard procedure 'round Philly for at least two or three years now, I think. Long enough that I've given up being disgruntled about it, mostly, except for the really stupid touchpads where you select "credit" or "debit" initially after swiping your card, and no matter which you select, it still gives you the number pad and requires a "cancel" to continue with credit. Bah. Humbug.

I love the icon advent calendar! And the freightyard stripmall description.

Huh; I've never even heard about this before. California probably has a law about it. :^)

I still haven't heard of the "hit cancel for credit" thing. But then, I always use my card as debit if the choice happens -- and some readers (like at the post office) are smart enough to know which typoe of card I jsut swiped. Maybe I shouldn't?

It's up to you, of course, but a lot of debit cards charge you a buck or two each time you use them at a non-approved ATM or store.

Ah! That would be why y'all are careful! Mine (singular card) does not do this at stores (it will on some ATM systems, so I do avoid that). Perhaps because it's a local credit union, or perhaps it's that whole unmodern Vermont thing *grin*

They ask for your phone number when you buy stuff? Wacky.

Some do. Circuit City and Toys-Backwards-R-Us and a clothing store in the mall all asked for it.

The only place I've ever had them ask me my phone number (and they wanted my address too) was Radio Shack, and I told them no, and they said OK. What do these people say if you won't give it?

Best Buy has also started doing it, but if I look cranky and say "I'd rather not give it" they always back off. I'm pretty certain they're using it as a link to help better compile a database of shopping habits.

So do some of the pet gear/food and bath and body lotion extravaganza type places -- national chains, basically.

Interchange between myself and an employee at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf a month or two ago:

Emp: [with marker poised to write my name on my cup] Can I get your name?
Moi: Andy...[looking around at completely deserted store]...just so you can differentiate me from all the other customers?
Emp: We're actually required to ask every time. If you were a mystery shopper and I didn't ask, I'd get in trouble.
Moi: You work for an inordinately silly corporation.
Emp: Oh, I'm well aware of that.

All in all, it's just another day at the mall

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