When I first woke up early this morning at about 6:30 am, for some strange reason I had this random flashback to about 2008 or so when I had an ottoman in my bedroom and wanted to pad out the opening top of it so I could also use it as a bench to sit on, so the one day I popped into our (now defunct) local Mothercare store and purchased a cheapish cot mattress (of approximately the same size and dimensions as the ottoman's opening top) with a plastic outer covering, which I stripped off, disposed of and reupholstered the foam padding with fabric matching the curtains at my bedroom window.
The woman on the till in our local Mothercare store that day, who was acting like some kind of social worker-in-disguise was basically demanding to know the exact size and dimensions of the cot in which the given mattress was intended to be fitted, which didn't actually exist, of course.
Do these till workers seriously have any responsibility for what customers actually do with the stock once it's officially paid for and left the stores, obviously apart from alcohol, tobacco products, sharp objects, solvents, etc, to under-18s (which of course wouldn't be sold in Mothercare and likewise stores)?
I really felt a right wally on that occasion and never went near that store again, even though my purchase from there and what I actually did with the item afterwards was totally innocent and not in any way unlawful.
I still feel a sense of guilt about it some 13 years later, even though I actually did nothing wrong at the time.
Why didn't you tell her the truth?
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Sometimes, it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness. - Terry Pratchett
Why would have I needed to tell her every exact detail of what I was intending to do with the item that I was legitimately paying for once I got it home. I did say that the item was the exact dimensions required, just to pacify her, but I could sense some hostility towards me from the staff in that store on that particular occasion.
Likewise, about 5 years later, a guy who was in my brother's old band purchased some baby rattles and bells from the very same Mothercare store to use as percussion instruments on a song he was recording at the time, and he said that the staff in there gave him dirty looks, as if he was some kind of perverted 'weirdo', which is far from the truth!
The store had closed by the end of 2019, as the entire chain had gone bust nationally around that same period.
But both myself and my brother's former bandmate felt an unjust sense of prejudice simply for purchasing baby items for the purpose of innocuously 'upcycling' them into things we actually had good use for, and possibly even just for setting foot in a store like Mothercare as lone men, which there's no actual law against.
Anyway, that's all water under the bridge as (for better or worse) the store and brand is consigned to history now, plus no actual harm was done by neither of us.
But at the same time, you didn't explain yourself, and in the case of a cot mattress I think a good fit would probably be important for the child's safety.
As for your brother's friend, well, why not either tell the truth or say the items were for a relative's baby? Sometimes I land up buying strange stuff for projects and it's a great excuse to have a conversation and engage with people.
I get that you've been mistreated in the past, I just don't think that this specifically is mistreatment.
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Sometimes, it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness. - Terry Pratchett
I totally understand and appreciate that child safety is important, and I don't necessarily believe that neither myself nor my brother's former bandmate were 'mistreated' in any way, but it was the sense of 'surveillance' and the perception of intrusion into my own personal business that I felt miffed about. Also if I told the till personnel the exact gospel truth they could have got funny with me and imply that another customer might need the item far more than me for its actual intended purpose and I could have inadvertently been depriving them of the given item, despite there being no obvious shortages of said items in the store, which of course would be far more understandable in the context of the current climate, had it been in 2021.
Let's face it, pretty much every shop throughout this country that sells alcohol and tobacco products displays mandatory signage that reads 'It is illegal to sell alcohol and tobacco products to persons under the age of 18', of which the vast majority of us fully accept, acknowledge, and obey, but never recall any written signage in stores like Mothercare stating that till personnel reserved the right to 'police' customers over their attempts to purchase specific items and their playing the role of social workers or some kind of 'vigilantes'.
Anyway, like I already said above, it's well in the past now, but that particular event just randomly popped into my head straight after waking up this morning.
Last edited by Lencoboy; 24-10-21 at 18:05.
I have worked in shops from when i left school. We sold ever thing except food and shoes. i loved it.
Moving on quite a few years the shop shut down. I went to work in a food shop. cakes etc,
I hated it. Don't do food shops or veg shops------ or scent shops. I also hate going into shoe shops. I have so many pairs of shoes and they are so uncomfortable. I am wearing shoes that cost me £4 because they don't hurt me.
All this sounds awful, such a moaner today. MUST DO BETTER .
Magic
This morning I was thinking about Boots stores in general, how especially before the 90s, they used to have quite comprehensive in-store 'sections' for specific things, such as photography (which still lasted into the 2000s IIRC), affordable audio equipment (mostly 'console'-style music centres and portable cassette recorders, boomboxes, etc), the recorded music section (which was pretty much gone by the mid 90s, despite their also selling CDs since the mid 80s), and the baby care section, which was essentially an in-store mini-'Mothercare', which also started to gradually peter out from around the late 80s-early 90s onwards IIRC.
Although I haven't actually set foot in there for yonks now, the Boots store in our town centre (and probably most others) is now more or less a pale shadow of its former self and I'm still pleasantly surprised that they have still managed to avoid going the way of the likes of Woolies, etc, after all this time.
I think Boots is different because it is at its core a chemist, and people always need chemists. I love Boots, I don’t know why, but it is full of things I either need or want. It’s in no way a discount or bargain store, it knows it’s customers and it does well by them.
Boots is incredibly handy, yes.
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Sometimes, it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness. - Terry Pratchett
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