Good Evening!
Back from the show... But before the show, I headed over to Pentagon City to check out some stuff at Macy's. Surprisingly, it was not at all busy. At least when I got there. A bunch of the clerks looked visibly tired, frustrated and/or in "don't ask me a question" mode.
There was one chipper guy who was manning one of the registers, and he seemed OK. But then I heard him answering a query from a lady who was waiting to be rung up. She pointed out that the woman who was being rung up on the other side of the counter had actually gotten there after she had, and wondered why she was not the actual next person in line then. Well, the clerk responded, "Well, it's up to you to speak up and put your merchandise down on the counter." -What kind of an answer is that?!?!? At least she was then the "next" person in line, and since two registers had opened up, she was being rung up at the same time the that the lady who had "cut in" was being rung up. In any case...
I was on a mission to find a new tea kettle for my parents. I noticed that the one I was used to seeing on the stove was no longer there. My mom had resorted to pulling out her small copper kettle from the sideboard- I think this was the first time it had ever been used, and she's had it for ages. It worked, but it took forever for it to heat and bring the water to boil - just bad design/construction. After walking around a while, I finally found the table with the tea kettles. So many choices, so many price points. I eventually settled on the new OXO "uplift" one. Very cool, and it was on sale.
Then while walking around a bit more, I decided to buy my parents a few new pieces of cookware. -My parents - even though they are both in the food service industry - have a bad habit of continuing to use pots and pans way past the point that they're still functional - or even safe. -Let's just say I was getting tired of finding pieces of non-stick coating in my food. So... After checking out the various displays, I finally settled on a 7-piece Cuisinart set - anodized and non-stick. It too was on sale. *I still think it's sort of misleading to label a lid as a "piece". Yes, it's a 7-piece set, but it's only four pans and three lids. In any case...
Once I got up to the register - and I ended up with one lady who looked like she was ready to go home hours ago - my Macy's card would not go through. She tried it again, still didn't go through. -That made her very "happy". Well, she pointed to where the courtesy phones were, and I headed there and made the phone calls. It turns out that it was a 'security' issue. I had applied for the card while I was out in LA this past summer, and I had only used it in LA. This was the first time I had used it on the east coast, and the computer was kicking out the sale as a precaution. I also had no balance on the card currently, so that was causing a flag to go up somewhere in their system. Well, I made my way back to the counter, got my stuff rung up again, and headed out to the car. OH! And the best of the while thing is that I also got a 15% discount off my entire purchase due to a promotion with the Macy's card! *A woman behind was looking at the discount being tallied up on the register display, and she was wondering how I got it since the holiday coupons they had did not apply to some of the sale items. Bonus!
-OK - that was long, rambling and boring...
In short, I went to Macy's and bought my parents a new tea kettle, and a set of cookware. And it was all on sale, plus I got an extra 15% off the sale prices too!
