Shopping

I’ve never been a mall rat.  Shopping to me is a decide what you need, run in, grab it, pay and run out proposition.  For the most part.  Some of the places I can spend a lot of time wandering around just looking at stuff are:

Cars.  My little brother and I have spent entire afternoons going from dealership to dealership looking at cars.  Just for fun.

Camera Stores.  Dreaming about that $10,000 lens or the newest camera.

Costco.  Has a lot of stuff to look at, and even stuff I can afford to buy.

Home Depot.  If you sent me a $100,000 gift card that could only be spent there, I would have spent within a month.

Walmart.  Never again.  Evil Empire.  And I got that from a friend that works in management there, not just from Facebook.

See more shopping pictures at:

Thematic Photographic: Shopping for gum

And I didn’t get kicked out.

So I decided to do another shopping set, and really didn’t want to get kicked out of another store.  So I thought “Hey! Chevron.  I work there, they won’t kick me out.”

I also decided the theme would be “Hmm, when does too many choices become more of a burden than a convenience?”

I started thinking of this about 4 years ago when I was stocking the Coke in the fridge.  You see, at last count, there were about 30 different kinds of coke you could buy.  Coke.  Cherry Coke.  Vanilla Coke.  Vanilla Cherry Coke.  Diet Coke. Diet Coke with Lime.  Diet Cherry Coke.  Diet Vanilla Coke.  And then we go into the Coke Zeros, which are sugar free like Diet, but definitively NOT diet.

But tonight I decided to focus on gum.  Look at the pictures, count the different flavors, brands and types of gum.  Each picture is of a different section of gum in our store.  Six sections, strewn around the store, everywhere you look.  And still we have customers come in and ask “Where’s your gum?”

I’ve seen people literally spend 10 to 15 minutes browsing the gum for just that one perfect flavor/shape/brand.

Seriously folks, it’s all the same, just grab a blue pack and get on with your life.

Thematic Photographic: Max got kicked out of Home Depot.

I had my cover story down.  With my official school district I.D. dangling from my shirt I was ready to play the “I’m a junior high math teacher taking pictures of geometric shapes for my class” card.  It’s worked before, and I’m sure I’ll use it again.

I headed over to the garden center, figuring there would be fewer people there, fewer weird looks.

Other than the pictures out front, them’s was all the pictures I gots.

The paint section of the store is right by the garden center so I planned on getting a cool shot of the big display of those little color patch cards.

I was walking down the isle, the wall ‘o color in sight at the other end.

As I passed a Home Depot dude, he looks at me and asks, in a not-so-nice voice, “Are you taking pictures?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re not supposed to be taking pictures in here.”

Flashing him my official I.D. I ask “Even if they’re for a junior high math class?”

His manner takes a 180° turn, all of a sudden he becomes not only polite, but quite apologetic.

“Yeah, I’m sorry, we just don’t allow pictures in the store.”

I tell him that it’s no problem, that I understand and he thanks me for being so understanding.  I left with five pictures worth of  ill gotten booty, figuring that telling this story would be worth a thousand pictures.