Once upon a time, boys and girls, shopping for certain items was simpler. You either went to a big town or city, and if you couldn't find what you were looking for, you would ask for the shop to order it and collect it at a later date.
This was as true of sub aqua gear as kilts, ski equipment or specialised corsets. But the super abundance of the 21st century has changed all that.
There wouldn't appear to be anything at all too specialised or exotic about a trouser press. As a fan of gadgets (led lighting is my thing of the moment), I've decided I'd like one. Hazel Motes in "Wise Blood" said "Nobody with a good car needs to be justified." - my feelings about having a trouser press aren't quite that strong, but it is true that my trousers would be very justified with a trouser press.
So today perused the internet for trouser presses - several big name firms sell them online but not in stock, and I will never put my personal details or bank details online, ever. So go to the first shop:
Shop 1) Flash "Autism Alert" card to a very pleasant response. Within minutes they are requiring (n.b. not requesting) my personal details to be put online. Leave, didn't argue - the assistants wouldn't have known what data mining means.
Shop 2) Flash "Autism Alert" card, very pleasant response from very pleasant young man even after telling him straight off he wasn't getting my name, e mail address, telephone number or payment by card. Within minutes the poor kid was in a position that he realised that the computer console was requiring my personal details to be put online. I don't know if this has anything to do with my insistence on paying with cash, which would appear to have become an act that arouses suspicion these days. Left.
(One hour drive to the next town with a crematorium).
Shop 3) Didn't want to go here as it's a place I usually boycott for political reasons. Found a very pleasant and staggeringly attractive young lady assistant, flashed "Autism Alert" card - she told me she had someone in her family on the scale, and that may have been a material fact in the way events improved. After considerable kerfuffle finding someone who knew how to accept cash payments for online goods to be ordered and collected, THEN someone else with the security clearance to accept cash payments, THEN the computer playing up, I left with a receipt to redeem against goods to collect, and they got a name and a telephone number (not necessarily mine, but that's beside the point).
Two and a half hours running around in service of supply, over half an hour of it in nasty mall like surroundings.
Why oh why oh why oh why? Is a man buying a trouser press under suspicion of intention to use it as a piece of torture equipment or instrument of terrorism? Perhaps a trouser press can be modified for use in a meth lab? There's one national chain in Britain (electrical items) where the apparently power mad assistants hold up what ever you want to buy with one hand and hover the other over the till while demanding your name and the number of your house.
Resist them, that's my way. They want information. They won’t get it.
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