Happy Thanksgiving! I suppose it comes earlier up here because the growing season ends long before the late November celebration in the states. Plus Columbus didn't really discover Canada. Here in Quebec, it's not a big celebration, it's more of a day off work, ala labor day. But this year I've decided to shake things up and make the bird with all the trimmings. I'll take a pic o the feast for tomorrow. The photo above shows the sumac blazing red. There are clumps of this stuff all around the island of Montreal. Like cherries on a Hawaiian pizza.Yesterday, spouse and I went shopping. I took him to the new fancy shopping center deep in the suburbs. As we neared the Dix30 (so named because the shopping center lies at the intersection of two freeways - the 10 and the 30) spouse said, "I feel like I'm in California." Indeed the place looks like it would be at home in (insert any upscale suburban setting) except for the lack of palm trees. As spouse noted later in the afternoon as we hauled our haul around, "There's no beggars here." A world insulated from reality. I couldn't help but enjoy it though, we found a rug for the living room which we are going back this morning to purchase. We're going when they open because yesterday, no one seemed to be available to help us. (Insert bitter shopping experience here. Can I just say LAME is when you are ready to part with hundreds of dollars and yet there are no staff to help you, despite repeated insistence that there were staff to help? Just wait for the man in the carpet area. Just wait in the carpet area and an associate will assist you. All you have to do is wait in the carpet area for assistance. Can you help me? No, we have someone on the floor to do that, just wait in the carpet area. 45 minutes of that. I guess I inserted the bitter shopping experience for you.)
My favorite purchase yesterday was the meter long shoehorn. I fell in love with this thing when I was teaching at a Japanese family's home last year. They had one and it was so much more refined to slip your shoes on in a standing position. I loved it and have been looking for one since. I squealed in the store when I saw them. Spouse laughed and mocked me. "You're so lazy, you don't even want to bend over."
16 comments:
You call it a Shopping Center and not a Mall. I would think at least in Canada a mall would still be needed. Here I read where the Mall will soon be a thing of the past. Too expensive to heat and cool they said. But I love the Mall.
I won't comment on Torn's not liking ot bend over. Too easy.
Is it laid out more like a "Towne Centre"? That style of "mall" is becoming more popular here in the northeast US.
I share your frustration with such shopping experiences, unfortunately I am enough of a Taurus and a stubborn Dutchman that I would never go back to get the rug, no matter how much I liked it.
I would follow up Spouse's comment, but... discretion is the better part of valor (or valour).
I am like Lemuel, I wouldn't spend one copper penny in the rug store. (Darin would raise a fuss and ask for ten percent off!)
I love how Serge mocks you! It's endearing!
Happy Turkey day to you too! I am also going to take food pictures because I don't know if people will believe how much food it takes to feed 30 people Walton-style!
Everybody is latching onto the "bending over" bit.
I hate when I am ready to part with my money and nobody in the store will take it from me.
I had the exact same experience in Home Depot ... "wait in the carpet area. The assistant will help you there", I was told three times. Finally after more than a half hour, a 16 year old kid did show up. He didn't know if the area rug I wanted came in the size I wanted, and couldn't find it in the computer. He disappeared to get someone to "help". After 20 minutes he still hadn't returned and as my kids were as fed up as I was by that point, we left. I did return a few days later and order and pay for the rug, which took a further three weeks to arrive. And yes, it was worth the hassle. It's perfect and I love it.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and Serge! Oh, and the red sumac is gorgeous.
Mine's only 18" long. But I love it.
I worked in a Domino's Pizza joint for a year and a half, and a Hawaiian pizza, to my knowledge, has ham and pineapples, no cherries.
Course, maybe Canadian Hawaiian pizza DO have cherries, who knows with you silly Canadians. :)
HUGS...
I'm compelled to say that Columbus didn't discover America either. Compelled.
Also I love sumac. I really do.
Have a good dinner!
I too was tempted by the closing quote of this post.
Isn't it nice to know that we all had it in our hearts and minds to bash the hell outta you for that last comment. Such friends, we are
(I'm just thankful for a post that didn't allude to shitting.)
I'm jealous of your shoe horn. Those are the best. And just try getting a hold of one nowadays in shoe stores.
Ha, I love the shoehorn thing. I too am lazy and would love to not have to bend over to put my shoes on. But I don't see why the Japanese would need one, they're tiny people, they don't have to bend far.
Ha, I'm going to hell.
I lived in Montreal until Nov 2005 and I am trying to figure out which mall and/or carpet place you're talking about. No matter... your fruitless wait for a carpet person made me giggle, just because of the way you wrote it.
I'll say what the others said: There is nothing quite as frustrating as having money to burn and burning intent, only to be ignored! Idiots! You should call them and let them know. I find that very satisfying, although I never do it... I just think about consumer-revenge scenarios, most of the time.
Nice photo of sumac leaves.
I wonder if I can meet up with you and the spouse for a dwink when next I hop on a bus from Lachute?
happy turkey day boys.....had that same shopping experience the other night buying a new vacuum cleaner after future mrs ex destroyed the one we just bought about year ago...mine cost 1/2 what she paid and is better....and yeah, sorry, but the last comment is sooooooooo tempting....but its thanksgiving up there...i will behave
i really have to find out more about this whole canadian thanksgiving, eh?
i could want that rug in the worst way and i wouldn't buy it there. but then i'm petty like that.
My Spouse would have insisted in a huff that we leave immediately and never EVER return to the store again, despite the fact that the item we wanted was absolutely perfect and not available anywhere else. You all have more patience.
I wonder what would happen if instead of leaving and coming back the next day, you just pretended to walk out of the store without paying for some other item? When the manager or security guard approached you, you simply said "FINALLY I can get some assistance around here! I don't really want this item, I want that rug from the top shelf of the rug area."
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