Shopping is bad enough, but in Glasgow?

I really hate shopping with a passion. Have I already mentioned that? Yes, I have – in my virgin post. It got to that ’emergency’ status this week, my work shoes needing replaced. Badly. In all honesty, if I had a choice, I would go to Edinburgh if I was going ‘shopping’. My ideal would be Costco followed by the Boots the Chemist just along the road. Then take the slip road onto the by-pass and head north as far away (and as quickly) as possible.

This ‘shopping’ trip has had to be slightly different, to say the least. The windows in my flat are getting replaced, so going to Edinburgh was just not going to be convenient. I decided in my ‘wisdom’ to go to Glasgow instead. My thoughts were to kill two birds with the one stone, visit our business Webmaster and go and get the much needed essentials at the shops. Be still my beating heart.

When I told hubbie that I was going to go to Glasgow instead, he was just delighted, it was going to save him a trip…. We recently bought a house for staff quarters, and once the renovations were done (much stress and planning – it all worked out rather well, probably because I wasn’t involved.)- I didn’t even LOOK at the house when we bought it, just left Ed to it. That maybe seems a bit daft, however, it was for staff accommodation, and it was in Crianlarich, and well, I just …. em… didn’t go and see it. I am not the best at planning. Chaos tends to follow me around. I don’t even know if ‘chaos’ really covers it to be honest! The safe bet was just letting Ed and his team of builders get on with it.

I was asked to ‘go to Ikea’ and help ‘fill the house’ from top to bottom. Oh, I was just so thrilled by the prospect of going, it took all of a nano-second to say, “Don’t be so £ucking stupid, of course I don’t want to go to Ikea to kit out the house”. The look on Ed’s face was verging on the ‘petted lip’, but after he deliberated on the idea, he realised that no amount of Ikea meatballs washed down with 6 bottles of anything alcoholic was going to get me there.

We did have a bit of a ‘situation’ once in B&Q in Stirling. Now THAT shop brings me out in a rash. Don’t ask me to go there. It’s not safe. Ed had decided that he wanted to do the ‘supermarket sweep’ just to make sure that he didn’t miss out on any essential screws, or silicone-anything that he might decide that he couldn’t live without. So up and down, up and down every aisle, until I got half way round and was so fed up, that I crawled onto one of those garden swing seats and refused to move. Not impressed. That was where it started to get slightly messy. I was not popular, how dare I sit down languishing in near (??!!) luxury when Ed had to do the (self-inflicted) ‘supermarket sweep’. Pffft.

I stomped out. I did. I stomped out, went to the car, put the seat back and fell asleep. There were words. I nearly went back into the shop to buy the nail gun that I had seen earlier on. See, I’m not any good at DIY, never mind going to a shop that sells all that kind of stuff.

So, when I was asked to pop into a couple of places in Glasgow, to take back the ‘returns’, I said ‘ok’ – to be honest, how difficult could it possibly be?

I left work early yesterday so I could go to Clydebank. I got there in under an hour, which wasn’t bad. I should really have guessed that things were going to go tit$ up. Went to the boot of the car to get the box out that had to be returned, and all the table legs fell out into the boot of the car. That did not start well. I stuffed them all back in the box, picked it up again, and they all fell out the other side again. Oh yes. Fantastic. (Stop laughing)

All I had to do was take a table back to Dunelm, pick up a stack of pre-ordered curtains. Was that it? Oh, aye, I had to get 2m of netting for the front bedroom. THAT took 20 minutes. Honestly, 20 minutes to get a bit of netting. By this time, they couldn’t find the box that had been put aside, saying “I think the goods have been put back on the shop floor….” Oh really? By this time I had phoned home and mid-rant to Ed, demanded to speak to the manager. They found the box. Good. So, all I had to do was go to the checkout. Now, you would think that at 4pm at night – only 3 other customers in the shop and about 12 staff milling around that it would be easy to pay. Nope. The poor lad at the customer services desk was flat out – my curtains were there, so I had to wait. The customer in front of me was needing a refund, so a supervisor/senior sales had to be called on the tannoy:

“Customer service, senior sales to customer service, customer waiting.”

After 6 calls there was still no-one coming to help the poor sod that wanted his money back. The young lad behind the counter was doing a great job of not losing his rag. Me? I was so, so, close to going behind the counter and no, not getting my box of stuff, but getting my hands on the tannoy and shouting over it:

“Customer service, there is not one customer waiting, there are two cranky ones waiting and if one of you lazy to$$ers don’t get here in the next minute, I will start causing a scene.”

Honest to goodness. It took me over an hour to collect a box, buy 2m of netting, 12 shower curtains and return a table. By this time, it was rush hour and I had to get through Clydebank never mind down to the M77. Deep joy.

What is it with the British habit of queuing. Surely if there are two lanes, you use them? When I got back round to the road to get back to the main round about there was a queue of traffic which in all honesty would be about 3/4 mile long – I couldn’t understand why on earth there was a massive queue, so, I drove up the ‘slow’ lane until the roundabout came into sight, where there was one, aye, one car parked at the side, causing the queue. As you can imagine by this time having spent longer in Dunelm than I actually spent driving from home, I was not feeling like being polite and waiting in a pointless queue just for the sake of it – do these people not want to go home?

So, today I had to go to Costco. That’s my kind of shopping. Lots of space, not a great deal of choice to over complicate things, if they don’t have it tough, and if they do have it (whatever ‘it’ is) buy it, coz the chances are, it won’t be there the next time you go in.

I had another return to take back. 5 minutes it took. Congratulations Costco, you truly rock. So, seeing as the day started so well, I went for a supermarket sweep. Well, I had to replace the nest of oak tables that I returned, so whilst I was there, I couldn’t not look, could I? Personally, I want the ‘nest of oak tables’ in our house never mind putting it into staff quarters. Hells teeth. There’s an idea. I wonder if Ed would notice? Bought one or two things. Let’s just leave it at that.

Rant in Braehead Marks & Spencers. Why do they have so many pairs of trousers and NOT ONE PAIR is labelled correctly? aaaaarrrrgh! Even with help from an assistant, it was useless. Get me out of here sprung to mind! A Starbucks coffee with extra caffeine added to the caffeine was called for. Felt marvellous after that, which was just as well, I had to go to Ikea next, to return a seat this time.

When I got to the returns area, you can imagine my delight when I took my ticket and it said on the monitor “1 minute waiting time….” Whatever possessed me to believe that? I had ticket #64. Between customers, honestly, were the assistants playing a hand of solitaire? I think they were just trying to push our buttons. There were 12 of us waiting by now. The ‘waiting time’ had changed to 7 minutes. It was lying – I had been there 11 already. I felt like the main character in the book I had just finished. Counting. Everything. 1 minute wait, 3 rows of seats, 12 waiting, 3 assistants, 8 computers
(*5 unused), then one of them buggers off for their lunch of meatballs and Dime bars and leaves 2 assistants (still playing their game of solitaire) when the computer crashes and it becomes a free-for-all.

Damn right I was first in line. Right there. I nearly slapped a customer who had just walked in just as the computers crashed and strolled up to the counter. I managed to restrain myself from doing that, having any meatballs, hotdogs, Dime bars (damn it, wish I had bought them) or anything else remotely sinful. I went straight to aisle 18 row 25 and picked up my replacement seat.

That’s it. I have now had enough of shopping for one year. I was trying so hard to escape the car park at Ikea, I went the wrong way out twice – you know, you have done it too…. or is it just me???? You get lost or kerb your alloys. Joy.

Just aswell Costco was fun!