Stuff

My ladyfriend played this for me this weekend. Take a look - and then think twice about buying all those after-Christmas too good to be true sale items.

I used to work at a certain big name housewares store, where employees got great discounts on regular / sales items and then there was schtickle --- the promised land of scratch and dent stuff (like returned dinnerware, chipped candles, foods with f*cked up labels/packaging, scratched glasses, etc. etc. etc.). Schtickle discounts were ASTRONOMICAL (pennies on the dollar!!!!!!!!). Walk into an employee's house and you'd find lots of schtickle. I practically furnished my entire apartment on the stuff. Everyday, I'd come home with a little of this and a little of that, bags full to the brim... a dented candle, a vase with a tiny irregularity, a set of 5 appetizer plates (the set was supposed to be six, but one broke, thus its status as schtickle), etc. It was glorious.

For all that glory - a big thank you and shout out to picky (and dishonest) customers who took advantage of the store's generosity - especially the couple who bought a pefectly good dining room table, took it home, scratched it up with tiny scratches when pulling it out of the box to put it together and then had the nerve to take it back to the store claiming that THEY didn't do it. Sure, whatever dumbass. That just meant that I got to buy the table for 5% of what you paid for it ($20). And guess what... you can't even see the scratches anymore. Thanks also to all those super picky "ladies" who bought dinnerware, didn't believe the store employees when we told you NOT to put it into the microwave because it would cause little hairline cracks (i.e. crazing) and then returned it because you weren't happy when it ACTUALLY did crack. Of course, we graciously accepted your return and that crazed dinnerware is now gracing the table of some less fortunate and lower-paid store employee who couldn't afford it at the regular price. So, again, thank you.

Alas, that housewares store doesn't do schtickle anymore (probably because it seriously lowered the profit margin), but it was good while it lasted.

In addition to the great schtickle, I also gained a little bit of shopping/consumer insight while working there. Here are some highlights to ponder before you buy all the stuff you want to buy right now:

1. If you think you love it, wait. There will be something you love just as much, or more, in a week or three or in the next catalogue.
2. If you think you want to buy it, wait. If you still want to buy it in a month, go ahead.
4. If you think you want to buy it, wait. Your tastes will change in a week or a year, whichever comes first.
5. Customers are picky - they don't want scratched stuff that's still perfectly good. That means that it gets tossed, donated or sold as schtickle. That means a cheap discount for me, but more waste for the company and more consumer waste ending up in our landfill.
6. It takes a shitload of packaging to get that product into your house. (Do you realize that all those glasses and sheets and candles come delicately wrapped from the warehouse and that the store unpacks it, puts it on the shelf and then rewraps it just for you to take it home.)
7. It's just stuff, but it's fun stuff.
8. If I spend all my money on this stuff, I don't have money for other stuff (like clothes, food, etc.)
9. Last, but just as important: Before you use it, wash it - especially if it's cloth! I can't tell you how many times I'd unpack a crate full of table linens (especially at Christmas and around the time of the Seattle port strike in 2002) that reeked of mildew or kerosene (or some chemical preservative). We would have to let the linens air out for several days before we could even put them on the floor. Why were they so stinky? Because they were sitting in a cargo ship and container for weeks/months, in the dark, with rats and bugs, etc. I also can't begin tell you how much nasty dust we would wipe off the boxes coming from other countries and get it all over ourselves and then break out wherever we made contact with the filthy other-worldly dust. Yuck.

Happy New Year!