Heck's

Hecht's does this weird thing. They tend to price things a bit too high, but make everything on sale. There's that old saying "it's not how much you spend, it's how much you save". Hecht's must be founded on this philosophy. Things are either on sale or really on sale.

I wanted to get an electric toothbrush since Justin recently got one. Of course, Justin got his for free. I was going to get a fancy one. The one I got was originally priced at 80 bucks, but I got it 60% off. Now, I don't believe it cost 80 bucks, and indeed, it looks like it may be discontinued. It was wrapped in this unforgiveable mess of a box, but it was cheap. I may buy the cheaper one for 20 bucks (after the discount).

The problem was trying to get the discount. I got in line and it wasn't moving. Hey folks, if you have stuff to return, then there should be a special line, because you guys take forever. And when there's a line, cashiers, call someone else to help out.

Fortunately, I'm a patient guy. I did walk to the cashier at the linens section, and they tried to scan in the product (no luck) and kept entering the bar code and having to log in a few times, before saying they couldn't take the discount (which oddly wasn't in their system, though it was 60 bucks when they typed it in, 20 dollars off the alleged price, and probably close to its true sell value). I walked back, and got in the other line, near where the product was being sold.

A woman was trying to get a refund on picture frames with no receipt, and that was talking forever. Then, another woman wanted to see if she could get a Kitchen Aid mixer on sale, even though none were out, and she wanted the guy to call up one of Hecht's sister site. Meanwhile, another two cashiers finally showed up.

The sale, again, failed to register on the machine, so I had to walk the cashier to the discount, and then he punched it in. I also wanted to get a silicon spatula, originally priced, I think, at 14 bucks. But alas, it had no barcode on it, so the guy had no idea what price it was. He eventually grabbed a random spatula and sold it to me for probably less than it was worth.

Let's just say the quality of service and the quality of setup seemed all messed up.

That seemed to be the theme of the day. I went to watch X-Men, which I'll blog on later about, and was going to get diet coke. I know. Don't buy food or drink at a movie theater. It's a ripoff. I'm a weak guy. What can I say?

Now, I had been standing in a line beside another buy who wanted diet coke too, but he had been told that there was no carbonation left, and he should get a bottled version instead. I decided to pretend I didn't hear this discussion and order it anyway. As they started to fill the cup, the guy got mildly upset, because clearly the diet coke was carbonated and working.

Ah, so most of the people helping out were these high school types. I guess this qualifies as summer jobs for Montgomery county kids. They all seemed awfully young, and I thought that they thought that this was a nice enough job for a summer. I wonder what they thought about the older guy (who was probably in his 20s) who was doing this for a real living. Did they think "poor guy"? Maybe not. But I'm sure none of them thought this would be a permanent career option for them.

By the way, for as much as they put Angel in the previews for the X-men, he's barely a character.

I just went to check IMDB for Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart's heights. Turns out they're both right around 5'10". Films do not like to have people with significantly different heights. They don't want a guy who's 5'7" hanging out with someone 6'5". This was something I looked up for Dallas 362 where IMDB reports Scott Caan's height at 5'6", while his co-star was 4 inches taller, though they show them as comparable height in the film.

Anyway, I think I'll take my toothbrush home and let it recharge.