Shopping Adventures
In which I chronicle several experiences I've recently had in the shopping realm, which I thought you might find entertaining, edifying, thought-provoking, and/or diverting....
The Saga of the Rug
A couple of weeks ago I went to Home Depot to look for, among other things, a rug for the living room. You know how sometimes you aren't quite sure what you want, until you see it, and then suddenly upon seeing it you instantly know that this is the exact perfect thing you've been looking for? That's what happened to me with the rug. I knew I wanted something dark (because the living-room walls and floor are light in color) and that it had to feel nice to the touch, so that people (kids) would want to lie on it. I didn't have any more specifics in mind than that, but when I saw The Rug hanging on one of those enormous hanging racks, I knew that it was The Rug for me.
Except, unlike all the other dozens of rugs there, The Rug didn't have any identifying information on it. No sticker or tag with its model name, manufacturer name, price, etc. like the others all had. And no copies of it were available on the shelves behind the hanging racks -- they have rolled-up, shrink-wrapped rugs on the shelves so that when you see the one you want on the hanging racks, you just match the pattern name and size to the one on the shelf and then grab it and go. But no such luck for me! The Rug was only in hanging-on-rack form, with a big "SAMPLE" sticker permanently embedded in it.
So I asked a guy, like you do. But he was befuddled. He searched the shelves, as I had just done. He examined the labels on the shelves and determined that none of them corresponded to The Rug. So he concluded that this rug must be discontinued, but he couldn't verify that for sure, because without a label or anything on the rug itself, he didn't know its name or manufacturer or anything.
I said, "Could I just buy the sample?"
He said, "but it has that cut-out part" (where the SAMPLE sticker is).
I said, "I know, but I would live with that because I like the rug so much."
He said, "well I wouldn't even know how much to charge you and anyway I'm not allowed to do that."
I was like, "dude you could totally just make up a number and I would pay it." But he wouldn't.
I left the store, defeated.
A week later I went back, thinking that by now they'd have switched out their stock and maybe there would be a new rug that would catch my eye. But it seemed to be all the same stock. And The Rug was still hanging on its rack, in the same place, with no tags, taunting me!
So I asked a different guy, and although I didn't recall having seen him during my previous visit, he remembered me. He was all, "oh, you're the lady who was asking about that rug." He said that he had tried to track the rug down but had no luck. He did explain to me a bit more about what happens -- apparently the manufacturer will notify Home Depot that this style is discontinued, so they take the tags down from the shelves, and then eventually the manufacturer sends someone out to collect up the samples and any remaining unsold rugs, and they grind them up and use them to make new rugs.
I said, "but it seems crazy for them to come and take the sample and grind it up, when I'm willing to give them money for it." The Home Depot guy agreed that this seems crazy, but said that in 20-some years of working at Home Depot he has never seen a rug company deviate from this procedure. And Home Depot literally can't sell me the sample, because it doesn't belong to them. Nor could he -- though I asked repeatedly -- tell me the name of the manufacturer so I could contact them directly. Because, to reiterate, there was no identifying information on The Rug. The astute reader might therefore be wondering how the manufacturer could collect it -- or, put another way, what might happen if I showed up saying "hi I'm from rug manufacturer here to pick up my samples, that one's mine over there, yep it sure is, uh-huh." ;) Ahh, a girl can dream.
Anyway, so I spent some time looking at the other rugs available and trying to talk myself into one of them, but I couldn't. I did note down the manufacturer information of another rug whose color palette and some other features matched The Rug exactly, and later I tried googling a bit, but no luck. (I also made a point of telling the Home Depot guy that they should take down The Rug so it wouldn't be there cruelly tempting and tormenting people, but he just shrugged. I think they aren't allowed to take it down either, until the manufacturer comes for it.)
Funnily enough, a couple of days later -- and just after I had started composing this post -- I got a promotional email from Home Depot that said something about rugs in the subject line, so I opened it, and it had a link to something like "overstock rugs/closeout rugs" so I quickly clicked, and ended up scrolling through 30 pages of rugs. But none of them was The Rug. :(
I would have pursued that further, perhaps, but mom and I are planning an IKEA trip tomorrow, so I thought I'd wait and see if maybe I'll find a nice rug there.
Cards Against Computers
A few weeks ago I bought myself a new computer. It was long overdue; my old one had been crashing constantly, to the point of enormous frustration. But in typical fashion I spent a long time waffling over what I wanted in a new computer. I finally identified one that had the features I wanted, but it was just a tiny bit more than I thought I wanted to spend, so I decided to sit on it for a bit, figuring that eventually I would decide to just pay the extra.
But then I saw that exact computer as part of a deal that Amazon was running, where if you bought a computer (from a short list of options) plus a $100 Amazon gift card, they would credit you back the amount of the gift card. So in other words, it's like getting the $100 gift card for free.
So I jumped on that, and Amazon shipped me the computer and the gift card -- separately.
The computer arrived within a few days, in a huge box of course, which the UPS delivery guy left on our back porch, like he does with all of our packages.
The Amazon gift card arrived in a hard-sided envelope, via FedEx, with signature required. So I got one of those little "we couldn't deliver your thing" post-its on my door, and I had to sign it and tape it back on the door and wait an extra day for the gift card.
I just thought it was kind of hilarious that the $500+ computer just got dumped on the doorstep, but the $100 gift card required my signature. Oh, Amazon. You so wacky.
If The Pants Fit, Wear Them
As the weather turns chilly, a mom's thoughts turn to ankles. Specifically, the ankles of her children, which are cruelly exposed to the world by the pants that said children have outgrown since they switched to shorts six months ago.
Ruthie had a few decent pairs of pants, because we have a couple of friends with older daughters who give us hand-me-downs, but Isaac not so much. So a few weeks ago I set out to restock the pants supply. I started with Lands End, which I like because a) most of their stuff is good quality, and not too expensive if you wait for sales and such, b) it's convenient to get it delivered, and if you need to return something, you can return it to a Sears store.
So I ordered four pairs of Lands End "boys' sweatpants" -- two in small and two in medium, in the colors that the kids picked. The smalls fit Ruthie perfectly. The mediums were the right length on Isaac but ridiculously WAY too baggy in the waist. I mean, when he pulled the drawstring as tight as he could, the material was bunched all around his waist and crotch -- it looked ridiculous. He said "let's keep them until I grow into them," to which I was like, dude by the time you grow into that waist, they'll be shorts. ;) But I kept them anyway, for Ruthie to grow into.
Then I went on the Lands End website and looked at their "girls' sweatpants." They come in the exact same colors as the "boys' sweatpants" and are almost identical, except that the girls' model has a slight curve to the legs (because 11-year-old girls are curvy!) and no elastic at the ankles (because girls don't care if cold air gets up their legs!). Neither model has pockets, because kids never have stuff to carry around.
Anyway, so despite the fact that the webpage for the girls' sweatpants specifically says "no boys allowed" (yes, it literally says that), I ordered a pair of them for Isaac anyway. I didn't tell him they were "girls" until after he had tried them on. As it turned out, they were the right length but still slightly loose in the waist, even after he pulled the string tight. But he said -- even after knowing that they were "girls" model -- that they were comfy so he liked them. But a few days later he admitted that he didn't want to wear them on a day when he had gym or other running-around activities, because he felt like they were going to fall off. Sigh.
(Note that although the website makes them look very different, the "girls" and "boys" sweatpants are extremely similar to my and Isaac's eyes. The lack of elastic on the ankles of the "girl" model is the most noticeable difference; the curve to the leg is very subtle and Isaac wouldn't have noticed it at all. The material seems to be completely identical.)
So I went back to Lands End one more time and this time looked at their "boys' slim sweatpants." I ordered a pair of those, and it was a win. The material seems slightly thicker than that of the boys' and girls' regular sweatpants; Isaac found them extremely cozy and really liked them. He still says they feel "a little loose" but not so much that he's nervous of them falling off his butt at any moment.
In conclusion, apparently my boy is super-skinny or something. It is just interesting to me that he and Ruthie have such different shapes, although it seems to me by looking at them that they're both perfectly normal. I mean, I don't look at Isaac and go "wow, he's skinny." It's true that he has apparently no butt, though.
This also obviously goes to show how stupid it is to categorize kids' pants by gender. Kids who haven't gone through puberty do not yet have gender-specific body differences; they just have "everyone is different" body differences. Why can't the pants be "slim straight-leg" and "regular straight-leg" and "regular curved-leg" etc.? Also note, there is no "slim" option for girls at Lands End. Boys' pants come in slim, regular, and "husky," whereas girls' pants just come in one variant. These things are subtle, but important to notice and think about. What does this do for kids' body image -- girls', in particular, but boys' body image is also not to be taken for granted? What does it say to my daughter that the pants that fit her better are called "boys' pants," and what does it tell my son that the "girls' pants" fit him better? Why do the "girls' pants," which as we discovered are almost completely identical to the "boys' pants," have to say "No Boys Allowed" on their webpage? Why do we need to put genders onto sweatpants that come in gray, red, green, and two shades of blue? It's just stupid, and makes my job as a feminist parent harder. I wish the clothing manufacturers would wise up and find a new way to categorize these things.
The Saga of the Rug
A couple of weeks ago I went to Home Depot to look for, among other things, a rug for the living room. You know how sometimes you aren't quite sure what you want, until you see it, and then suddenly upon seeing it you instantly know that this is the exact perfect thing you've been looking for? That's what happened to me with the rug. I knew I wanted something dark (because the living-room walls and floor are light in color) and that it had to feel nice to the touch, so that people (kids) would want to lie on it. I didn't have any more specifics in mind than that, but when I saw The Rug hanging on one of those enormous hanging racks, I knew that it was The Rug for me.
Except, unlike all the other dozens of rugs there, The Rug didn't have any identifying information on it. No sticker or tag with its model name, manufacturer name, price, etc. like the others all had. And no copies of it were available on the shelves behind the hanging racks -- they have rolled-up, shrink-wrapped rugs on the shelves so that when you see the one you want on the hanging racks, you just match the pattern name and size to the one on the shelf and then grab it and go. But no such luck for me! The Rug was only in hanging-on-rack form, with a big "SAMPLE" sticker permanently embedded in it.
So I asked a guy, like you do. But he was befuddled. He searched the shelves, as I had just done. He examined the labels on the shelves and determined that none of them corresponded to The Rug. So he concluded that this rug must be discontinued, but he couldn't verify that for sure, because without a label or anything on the rug itself, he didn't know its name or manufacturer or anything.
I said, "Could I just buy the sample?"
He said, "but it has that cut-out part" (where the SAMPLE sticker is).
I said, "I know, but I would live with that because I like the rug so much."
He said, "well I wouldn't even know how much to charge you and anyway I'm not allowed to do that."
I was like, "dude you could totally just make up a number and I would pay it." But he wouldn't.
I left the store, defeated.
A week later I went back, thinking that by now they'd have switched out their stock and maybe there would be a new rug that would catch my eye. But it seemed to be all the same stock. And The Rug was still hanging on its rack, in the same place, with no tags, taunting me!
So I asked a different guy, and although I didn't recall having seen him during my previous visit, he remembered me. He was all, "oh, you're the lady who was asking about that rug." He said that he had tried to track the rug down but had no luck. He did explain to me a bit more about what happens -- apparently the manufacturer will notify Home Depot that this style is discontinued, so they take the tags down from the shelves, and then eventually the manufacturer sends someone out to collect up the samples and any remaining unsold rugs, and they grind them up and use them to make new rugs.
I said, "but it seems crazy for them to come and take the sample and grind it up, when I'm willing to give them money for it." The Home Depot guy agreed that this seems crazy, but said that in 20-some years of working at Home Depot he has never seen a rug company deviate from this procedure. And Home Depot literally can't sell me the sample, because it doesn't belong to them. Nor could he -- though I asked repeatedly -- tell me the name of the manufacturer so I could contact them directly. Because, to reiterate, there was no identifying information on The Rug. The astute reader might therefore be wondering how the manufacturer could collect it -- or, put another way, what might happen if I showed up saying "hi I'm from rug manufacturer here to pick up my samples, that one's mine over there, yep it sure is, uh-huh." ;) Ahh, a girl can dream.
Anyway, so I spent some time looking at the other rugs available and trying to talk myself into one of them, but I couldn't. I did note down the manufacturer information of another rug whose color palette and some other features matched The Rug exactly, and later I tried googling a bit, but no luck. (I also made a point of telling the Home Depot guy that they should take down The Rug so it wouldn't be there cruelly tempting and tormenting people, but he just shrugged. I think they aren't allowed to take it down either, until the manufacturer comes for it.)
Funnily enough, a couple of days later -- and just after I had started composing this post -- I got a promotional email from Home Depot that said something about rugs in the subject line, so I opened it, and it had a link to something like "overstock rugs/closeout rugs" so I quickly clicked, and ended up scrolling through 30 pages of rugs. But none of them was The Rug. :(
I would have pursued that further, perhaps, but mom and I are planning an IKEA trip tomorrow, so I thought I'd wait and see if maybe I'll find a nice rug there.
Cards Against Computers
A few weeks ago I bought myself a new computer. It was long overdue; my old one had been crashing constantly, to the point of enormous frustration. But in typical fashion I spent a long time waffling over what I wanted in a new computer. I finally identified one that had the features I wanted, but it was just a tiny bit more than I thought I wanted to spend, so I decided to sit on it for a bit, figuring that eventually I would decide to just pay the extra.
But then I saw that exact computer as part of a deal that Amazon was running, where if you bought a computer (from a short list of options) plus a $100 Amazon gift card, they would credit you back the amount of the gift card. So in other words, it's like getting the $100 gift card for free.
So I jumped on that, and Amazon shipped me the computer and the gift card -- separately.
The computer arrived within a few days, in a huge box of course, which the UPS delivery guy left on our back porch, like he does with all of our packages.
The Amazon gift card arrived in a hard-sided envelope, via FedEx, with signature required. So I got one of those little "we couldn't deliver your thing" post-its on my door, and I had to sign it and tape it back on the door and wait an extra day for the gift card.
I just thought it was kind of hilarious that the $500+ computer just got dumped on the doorstep, but the $100 gift card required my signature. Oh, Amazon. You so wacky.
If The Pants Fit, Wear Them
As the weather turns chilly, a mom's thoughts turn to ankles. Specifically, the ankles of her children, which are cruelly exposed to the world by the pants that said children have outgrown since they switched to shorts six months ago.
Ruthie had a few decent pairs of pants, because we have a couple of friends with older daughters who give us hand-me-downs, but Isaac not so much. So a few weeks ago I set out to restock the pants supply. I started with Lands End, which I like because a) most of their stuff is good quality, and not too expensive if you wait for sales and such, b) it's convenient to get it delivered, and if you need to return something, you can return it to a Sears store.
So I ordered four pairs of Lands End "boys' sweatpants" -- two in small and two in medium, in the colors that the kids picked. The smalls fit Ruthie perfectly. The mediums were the right length on Isaac but ridiculously WAY too baggy in the waist. I mean, when he pulled the drawstring as tight as he could, the material was bunched all around his waist and crotch -- it looked ridiculous. He said "let's keep them until I grow into them," to which I was like, dude by the time you grow into that waist, they'll be shorts. ;) But I kept them anyway, for Ruthie to grow into.
Then I went on the Lands End website and looked at their "girls' sweatpants." They come in the exact same colors as the "boys' sweatpants" and are almost identical, except that the girls' model has a slight curve to the legs (because 11-year-old girls are curvy!) and no elastic at the ankles (because girls don't care if cold air gets up their legs!). Neither model has pockets, because kids never have stuff to carry around.
Anyway, so despite the fact that the webpage for the girls' sweatpants specifically says "no boys allowed" (yes, it literally says that), I ordered a pair of them for Isaac anyway. I didn't tell him they were "girls" until after he had tried them on. As it turned out, they were the right length but still slightly loose in the waist, even after he pulled the string tight. But he said -- even after knowing that they were "girls" model -- that they were comfy so he liked them. But a few days later he admitted that he didn't want to wear them on a day when he had gym or other running-around activities, because he felt like they were going to fall off. Sigh.
(Note that although the website makes them look very different, the "girls" and "boys" sweatpants are extremely similar to my and Isaac's eyes. The lack of elastic on the ankles of the "girl" model is the most noticeable difference; the curve to the leg is very subtle and Isaac wouldn't have noticed it at all. The material seems to be completely identical.)
So I went back to Lands End one more time and this time looked at their "boys' slim sweatpants." I ordered a pair of those, and it was a win. The material seems slightly thicker than that of the boys' and girls' regular sweatpants; Isaac found them extremely cozy and really liked them. He still says they feel "a little loose" but not so much that he's nervous of them falling off his butt at any moment.
In conclusion, apparently my boy is super-skinny or something. It is just interesting to me that he and Ruthie have such different shapes, although it seems to me by looking at them that they're both perfectly normal. I mean, I don't look at Isaac and go "wow, he's skinny." It's true that he has apparently no butt, though.
This also obviously goes to show how stupid it is to categorize kids' pants by gender. Kids who haven't gone through puberty do not yet have gender-specific body differences; they just have "everyone is different" body differences. Why can't the pants be "slim straight-leg" and "regular straight-leg" and "regular curved-leg" etc.? Also note, there is no "slim" option for girls at Lands End. Boys' pants come in slim, regular, and "husky," whereas girls' pants just come in one variant. These things are subtle, but important to notice and think about. What does this do for kids' body image -- girls', in particular, but boys' body image is also not to be taken for granted? What does it say to my daughter that the pants that fit her better are called "boys' pants," and what does it tell my son that the "girls' pants" fit him better? Why do the "girls' pants," which as we discovered are almost completely identical to the "boys' pants," have to say "No Boys Allowed" on their webpage? Why do we need to put genders onto sweatpants that come in gray, red, green, and two shades of blue? It's just stupid, and makes my job as a feminist parent harder. I wish the clothing manufacturers would wise up and find a new way to categorize these things.