I was in awe of all the lady-funniness going on around me at the Hideout last week, so thanks to everyone who came to see us! In addition to girl comedy, the night’s fun included being held hostage by the Ting-Tings, who apparently decided to shoot five seconds of their music video right outside the Hideout, which meant that for nearly an hour or so nobody could really leave or even go sit out on the breezy little brokedown patio and instead we were all forced to stay inside and sweat and drink our compensatory drinks, and oh, it was a nightmare. Well, except not really.
One of the things I read was based on my Bad Times entry a few years ago, but of course I had to revise and update it in order to cite new developments in the world of chain-store shopping discomfort, such as the Extreme Value Item Transaction at Jewel supermarkets. The Extreme Value Item Transaction doesn’t quite count as Bad Times, but it always confounds me just the same, because I inevitably fail to come up with a satisfactory response to the Extreme Value Item. The Extreme Value Item, for those of you who do not shop at Jewel, is a daily designated grocery item that has been deployed to a special location right there at the cash register, where the cashier can point out the fabulous savings opportunity it presents.
Is the value of the Extreme Value Item truly extreme? I have no idea because it’s never an item I’d buy. It’s always a can of nuts, or fruit roll-ups, or one of the more dubious flavors of Doritos. And the cashier has to point to it and say something like, “Have you seen our Extreme Value of the day?” Even when there isn’t a distinct subtext of I’d rather I didn’t have to ask you this the whole thing is extremely awkward. One time I tried just going, hmm! while pretending to deliberate about buying the Extreme Value, but that felt really pathetic and on some level unfair to the cashier. I’ve tried to say just, “no thanks,” but even that seems too much somehow, because when it comes down to it, I suppose I deeply resent having to take a position regarding the Extreme Value appeal of Blue Gatorade. Unsubscribe please! Now I find that most of the time I just avert my eyes and mumble uhnuhnuhnuhthanks, which is also my standard response for panhandlers and people handing out flyers and Hair Question Men. It’s still not the best response to the Extreme Value Item Transaction, but it’s all I’ve got, other than using the self-checkout or shopping somewhere where the bargains do not actually accost me.
I meant to tell you about the 5K but there isn’t much to say, other than: I ran it! Very slowly! I did the Couch to 5K program, in which you drive yourself apeshit for 7 weeks trying to measure and keep track of the myriad running/walking intervals until suddenly you really do find yourself sprinting along gazelle-like for miles, plural miles! Of course then at the 5K you see that you are are not at all a gazelle and that other slow runners are faster than you, as are some powerwalkers, people on crutches, and glaciers. But never mind! I’m probably going to do at least one more later this summer or in the fall.
There’s more to catch up on, but I really want to just be in bed now, continuing my Little House series reading kick. I’m on These Happy Golden Years now and can’t get enough of all the euphemistic horse-lust, cute little schoolhouses, and endless confounding descriptions of dress-sewing. Oh, behold the cambric basque with the darted polonaise and the lace jabot! Whatever the hell that is! Good night!
OMG. Hair question men! I was just in Chicago visiting for the first time ever and strolling down Michigan Avenue. I followed my instinct when questioned by the young men on my hair and just kept walking. Now I’m glad I did. Really, who would want to know anything about my hair anyways? I’ve never encountered that in another city and wonder if women of Chicago are especially susceptible.
Oh, the Extreme Value Item is sometimes truly X_Treme! Like when they have the Planter’s Spicy Nut & Cajun Sticks bags for $1 (regularly about…I don’t know…$3.49?), and they ask me the question, and I ask them back, “Did you not notice that you just scanned TEN OF THEM in my order here? So, I’m good.”
I also liked to go into Jewel on a Friday or Saturday afternoon for liquor tastings, though, when they have the expensive hooch.
LOVE the Laura Ingalls books…About every 3 years I read ’em all, in random order. Oh, the brown poplin! The engagement ring on her first (?!) finger. The bag of oranges at Christmas. (Love your site, love your words.)
HA, I just reread all the Little House books a couple months ago. Love These Happy Golden Years, but I made the mistake of actually rereading The First Four Years, which I usually put down after reading about the little house and its pantry, because 1) Since it wasn’t ever published in Laura’s lifetime it’s so raw and unlike the others, and 2) DEPRESSING.
Kate: Oh hell yeah. The First Four years is in my box set and now that I’ve started it I wish it wasn’t.
Sadly there are also Hair Question Men in the suburbs – but they come to your office, ignore the No Solicitors sign and come in the lobby to hawk their salon coupons. One of my co-workers actually succumbed to the ‘savings’. Unfortunately she quit before I could find out if the services were any good and if she managed to use them all up.
We don’t have Hair Question Men in Scotland; we have Ionic Curler/Straightener ladies.
They are scary. They accost you in shopping centres clutching a hot styling implement and ask you if they can attack “just one strand” of your hair to show you the wonder of their straighteners, which get hotter than everyone else’s but somehow do not fry your hair through the wonders of pseudoscience.
I really don’t want them to. And I’d have thought that they’d look at me, a woman with hair that is already straight and clearly hasn’t seen a salon this decade, and who isn’t wearing any makeup, and decide to concentrate their efforts on someone better-kempt. Yet they don’t! And they are very persistent! And if you say you don’t straighten, they try to curl you instead! (Why would I want to walk around with one curly strand, even if I subsequently loved the device and bought it?)
Oh, the trauma. I’d love to know if they’re this persistent with everyone, or if they’re particularly tempted by long hair or feel a missionary zeal to introduce me to basic grooming or something.
Wendy, rest assured that the Hair Question Men are alive and well in the Loop. I’ve had great success with “I’m not interested,” which maybe doesn’t force you to commit to a side with neither the HQM nor the X_TREME VALUE items?
The Extreme Value Item pitch isn’t half as annoying (or humiliating, more on that in a sec) as the credit card pitches that so many stores now force their employees to hawk – Kohl’s, Target, Macy’s (so I hear, I’m one of “those” Chicagoans who stubbornly avoids that store in loyalty to Marshall Field’s), you’re just not safe. I do have a work-at-home job (graphic designer), but for some insane reason I thought I needed to “get out of the house”, so I applied for a job at Old Navy last fall (they were flexible with the “mommy hours”, I only worked 10-2, during school hours). They pressure you to pitch the ON card with every transaction; at one point, towards the end of my employment, they had every employee sit down and sign a letter stating they would, to the best of their ability, push the card on every shopper. Not just to those in line to purchase merchandise, but in the dressing room and on the sales floor. They actually made us PRACTICE pitching the card, and it is included in a training video you must watch at the beginning of your employment. They kept charts of how many ON cards each employee got, and the “zero performers” were singled out openly. Half the reason I quit was because the corporate shenanigans of pushing this card so hard in such a bad economy made me ill. Plus, people suck as customers, the rudeness was too much.
I’m guessing the unionized Jewel employees aren’t forced to sign anything like the Old Navy crew.
I am a manager at a Jewel, and let me fill you in a bit more on that Extreme Value business. All cashiers must offer it. MUST. It was the worst thing in the world when they first started doing it, but I think everyone has gotten used to it and it’s just part of their lingo. If a cashier fails to offer the customer can call them out on it (which can be awkward) and you can get the item for free. Needless to say there are assholes out there that constantly try to get it free EVERY TIME they come in the store. They will try to keep the cashier from offering it by talking non stop or some other sneak attack. Really, it was a pretty good idea for the company but there’s always those people that ruin it. Like Babs said, it could be worse, it could be that credit card pitch.
You’re definitely not going on the right weeks if it’s all stuff you don’t buy. It was cookies the other week. Who doesn’t want bakery cookies? Granted, some time it just blows. It’s been shampoo, it’s been razors. I like when it’s the Propel water.
Oh, and a simple, “no thanks” when asked about the Extreme Value Buy will not offend your cashier, I promise.
A friend who works in the Loop was asked whether he likes polar bears (Greenpeace, maybe?), to which he responded, “No, not yet, but I hear they’re very tasty.”
God, I miss Jewel up here in milwaukee, because it wasn’t just the “extreme value” that i missed. It was the old school grocery store schtick that Jewel excels in, and we just don’t get that at Pick N Save. I found Jewel almost *charming* in that respect. They were so ridiculously uncool, and not in an “we know we’re uncool and we’re running with it” sort of way. They were just plain hokey. I loved Jewel. I’m sad they didn’t make it in Milwaukee.
I was in Target the other day when the cashier pitched me the Target Visa.
I already have one and was actually paying with it and she said, “That’s ok, you can apply again and then cancel that one.” Crazy! They (corporate devils) must really put the pressure on!
I ADORED all the Little House books! Of course, I was a little girl named Laura in the early seventies when the TV series was a hit! (Even though as a hardcore little reader even then I immediately noticed the discrepancies between the books and the show, which of course got heinously worse as time went on!)
Like you, Wendy, I LOVE all the details about sewing and housekeeping and what kind of meals they had!
I haven’t reread the whole series in order in many years, but you have inspired me. What a great idea! Oh yeah, “The First Four Years” broke my heart.
Wait – you’ve done the whole Couch to 5K thing? I started last week and great day in the morning I didn’t know I was so out of shape! How can jogging 90 seconds be so hard?
The HQM were alive and well in DC circa 2001. I was always a bit too no-nonsense going to & from the train to actually stop and talk to anyone accosting me, but I do remember being offended in my overly self-conscious way that he wanted to offer me coupons to a particular salon…as if whatever I was doing was not sufficient.
I think my (very) Bad Times Jewel in Evanston has told me about this week’s Extreme Value Item once in a year of shopping there. That’s the only thing about my Jewel I don’t despise.
At Walgreens drugstore they pimp stuff at the register. One day, I had to buy some items to, ahem, prepare for an internal surgical procedure. In addition, I could not consume any solid foods after 8 p.m. so I had many drinks in my basket. I was really irritated when the cashier pointed out the deal on Snickers bars. I think I yelped at her that I couldn’t consume any solid foods because of surgery prep. She was just doing her job. It honestly felt very invasive to me though because no matter what you have to come up with a good reason NOT to purchase the item.
When I worked at Strawberries in the ’80, I would push blank cassette tapes. That life is coming back to haunt me.
Hey, I’m doing the Couch Potato to 5K thing too! I’m halfway through week 6 now. It really seems to be working – I went from staring at the clock, desperately hoping that minute of running was almost over, to being able to run for 20 minutes straight. (It was close though.) I’m glad to hear that you were indeed able to do a 5k afterwards, I don’t know if I’m going to go that far. Congrats!
And the Little House box set I had growing up was one of my favorite series, EVER.
I have bought many an Extreme Value after getting the little cashier infomercial pitch on it. Maybe they should just fucking for it and start selling Jack LaLannes Power Juicers. They are thinking way too small with the Buttefinger mini packs.
Glad to hear Couch to program actually works! I quit after my arches started screaming.
“just fucking for it” was meant to be “just fucking go for it”. But we can pretend that I just started a new saying. Start telling people “Just fucking for it! Gawd!” It’ll catch on.
PS – Let me know when Pa starts grinding up the wheat in the coffee mill. I love The Long Winter.
I like to say, “EXTREEEEEME! ….no, sorry, that’s way too extreme for me.”