GET SOME JEANS AND YOUR STEREO

I was in a department store recently buying a blender when I realized something – department stores are bad places!

I usually go into department stores around Christmas time because they give the impression that they have everything you’d want in one convenient location. So if I wanted to get my dad some shoes, my brother a duvet, my mom a video game and my sister some panties, I could presumably get all these things in one go and then have enough time to get a hamburger or a gyro from the food court. Then I’d stroll home checking out babes, whistling my favourite tune and maybe buying an iced tea from a convenience store on the way because I opted out of the combo meal back at the food court.

But listen up citizens. This is what they want you to think. Here are some of my private notes on department stores, fresh from storage in the bowels of UCLA’s Institute for Social Science Research Data Archives Library:

The worst time to go into a department store is when it isn’t very busy. It’s sort of like seeing a dead vampire. Vampires are technically dead, but when they go out to get you and suck your neck off, they’re pretty vibrant and also horny. That’s what a department store is like when it’s busy – it’s dead inside but has a horny, vibrant exterior. The perfume girls with their tight black pants and two dollar manicures are surrounded by clueless dudes and old ladies who actually enjoy the attention and the apparent wealth of olfactory knowledge provided. When the store isn’t busy you’ll see the same girls but without customers, they look no different than employees of a brothel. They wait for someone to approach them, but when nothing’s going down, they have time to think about what it is they do for work and the last time I checked, the thought of being a perfume girl doesn’t naturally produce smiles.

Luckily I don’t shop for fragrances very often, so I always end up on one of the upper floors, like small appliances or toys. Once I was trying to find the board games and I got lost somehow. As I got deeper into the store it got darker and more humid. I took off my coat because I was sweating so bad and because it wasn’t very busy there was no one around to ask where I could find what I was looking for. I then realized that these stores don’t have any windows, nor do they have clearly marked exits, which again likens them to something of a haven for the undead. I think I did find the board games but it looked like no one had been there since 1997 and I couldn’t find Boggle so I left.

If you do find something you want to buy, finding a cashier is a whole other story. A manned station is hard to find and if there is someone actually working, there’s usually something wrong with the computer so you can’t pay with Interac Direct Payment, a popular choice amongst consumers including myself.

When you think about it, having department stores in malls is the dumbest thing since sliced bread because the point of a mall is to provide people with a concentrate of stores, the exact same service Timothy Eaton, Hudson Bay and Pete Sears brought to life many millennia ago. The department store is like a stupid mall within an already pretty stupid mall.

NOTES ON TODAY

I’m sick today but I can still play sports, so if you get a game going give me a call. I’ve been thinking of producing a play that takes place in a tank during the French Revolution, but from the Japanese’s perspective. Let me know if you want in. Until then I’ll be at the juice bar gaining nutrients and thinking about my dream wedding.