Walmart…livin’ the dream!!

I showed up at Walmart around 2:10pm on Friday and was immediately intimidated by the sheer number of people searching for bargain Christmas presents and such. There were moms crowding around the toy sections, grandparents splurging at the register on their grandchildren, elderly folk milling around looking as if they just wanted to be around people, and tons of young adults/teenagers foraging the affordable fashion wear in the clothing section of the store. I do have to say that the thing that impressed me the most was Christmas section. My soon to be mother in law is obsessed with this section of Walmart…and Walmart in general.

I think the strangest thing that I experienced was the grocery store. I was walking through the baby cloths and strollers and then bam…everything in the background dissolved and I was in my local Safeway..like I had stepped into some sort of teleportation machine, crazy! I have to admit, I don’t spend to much time at Walmart, I mean I have visited once in a while but I have read about their shady labor practices so I have really tried to avoid the store at all costs. The problem is, once I walked around and looked at everything there I realized that they had amazing deals. I promised my fiance that I would crochet a new throw for our couch and they had the most amazing selection of yarn at the best prices!!! I got two 10.5 oz skeins of white Baby Boucle (really plush non allergenic yarn) for a little over $8.00; this would cost about $12 at Michaels. I think that once I watch the Walmart movie I may have to re-instate my boycott against Walmart. Until then…which I guess is really tomorrow, I am proud of my yarn purchase.

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Spotsylvania Mall Field Work

On Friday October 10, 2008 at 2:03pm I arrived at the Spotsylvania Mall for my field work. It was a gorgeous day, about 70 degrees…not prime mall weather if you ask me. Once I walked through the doors I noticed the very pleasant, subtle sound of jazz music…not the normal muzak that one would hear in the elevator…I thought that it was a nice surprise. I began my journey and immediately noticed that the mall was populated mainly by women with children in strollers, a bunch of older adults of AARP age, some men, and a few young adult (college age students). I did notice some teenagers and I assume that they had cut class.

I started walking towards the nearest department store name Belk’s they focused on average department store type stuff…with more of an adult feel rather than a junior feel. I headed to JC Penny’s next to make a contrast between the two stores and I noticed 1) that the store contained much more Junior or young adult related clothing, and 2) there was no male clothing in sight. I found out later that there was a separate JC Penny Home and Men’s Wear store, it was much smaller. The differences between the two department stores were subtle. They both contained the normal department store items such as clothing, make up and jewlery, but JC Penny’s had a salon, something that we talked about at Macy’s at 34th street. The patrons were mainly the older adults who were not really buying anything just socializing and “window shopping” or as Fisk puts it Proletarian Shopping.

Moving on to the more “boutique” type stores I ventured into Hollister. The first thing one notices about this store is that there is a porch with palm trees out front. The inside was very dark and techno music was blaring. Every pass way was ridiculously small, I felt like I would knock over a palm tree wherever I moved and the entire placed wreaked of perfume…not in a good way.

There were many kiosks including cell phone sellers of all carriers, beauty supplies, and designer knockoff sunglasses , which are basically in any mall in America. The one strange thing that I noticed was the Proactive Vending machine…it looked like something out of Japan…they have the most fantastic vending machines. You punch in you skin type into the touch screen computer, swipe your credit card and out comes you acne treatment, you don’t even need to interact with a person, amazing.

All in all it was a successful trip that ended an hour later…I have to admit after the research I shopped around for a shirt for a bachelorette party so I became one of these shoppers on a mission which was funny. I am not a huge fan of the mall in general because I don’t like huge crowds and I normally go there on the weekends so this experience was much better than usual.

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A day in Downtown Fredericksburg

On Friday September 26th at 10 AMish I started on my journey into downtown Fredericksburg. I started by driving down from the top of Princess Anne street. I noticed that the top of the street contained mostly automotive shops and either fast food joints or little mom and pop diners but that was not what I found so intriguing; that part of town looked very similar to something I would imagine a late 50’s early 60’s town would look like. I found an interesting biker type shop called Big Daddy Leather, the store was populated mostly by large men who were more interested in socializing than shopping.

I headed down Princess Anne to the main downtown area. I parked my car across the street from the Court House and proceeded to walk to the corner of Princess Anne and William Street and found a cute coffee shop called Hyperion Espresso. I made a point to ask the barista if this coffee shop was independently owned and she replied in the positive which made me very happy because I believe that Starbucks rules the world…even though I work there. Surprisingly the coffee shop was well patroned for 10ish in the morning and the customers ran that gambit; business men on a coffee break, students, and many ladies that seemed to be over 40. Most of them were sipping their coffee from large mugs provided by the coffee shop, in other words, most of the patrons were eating and sipping in store rather than taking their caffeine to go. This was certainly a leisure activity.

After grabbing my small soy chai latte I headed down Williams street to Caroline street. This was such a lovely street full of little shops that seemed to be generally targeted to women. I stumbled upon that beautiful little tea shop that was buried inside of what seemed like a business owners co-op. It was called Tea Tyme I have to remember to take my mom there when she visits from NY but that is besides the point. Anyway, the shop was adorable but the only soul I saw in this “co-op” were the people behind the counter at their shops. The shop had a menu of tasty teas as well as some merchandise like little knick-knacks and mugs, it was very novelty but definitely a good find. This little shop made me feel warm and brought back memories of my youth when my mom would take me in the Manhattan for tea and cakes at Serendipity.

I strolled further down Caroline Street an noticed an abundance of antique shops with all sorts of things ranging from old signs to beautiful (and expensive) furniture. The strange thing is that these shops had zero customers, not a single person! I found it odd but then realized what time it was and figured that people would probably shop a bit later. I have to say that the coolest shop I found was a real life 50’s style pharmacy. It was called Goolrick’s and there was a soda jerk and a pharmacist. I have never actually seen one of these places…other than in movies. I also noticed a trolley system which was really cute and added to the novelty of the town.

I also must mention this one little shop I went into that turned out to be a museum called the Hugh Mercer Apothecary this was a really interesting find. The docents were dressed in 18th century garb and had a great knowledge of the different types of herbs that cure all ailments. There was a family of 3 on a tour and they were so excited to be there.

In the end, I think that the next time I go on the shopping field trip I will probably do it a bit earlier. I think that the shopping habit of the average person do not take place at 10ish through 11ish on a Friday morning…well except for the coffee shop patrons.

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