last night i decided to stop by kohls to return several christmas gifts sent to me by geographically distant relatives. while i was aware that there are a couple of these stores being constructed in the durham area, i had to go online to discover that the closest operational one is at durant & falls of the neuse in raleigh.
while my experience with all of the employees at this store was really good (especially the woman from the 'seasonal' department, who had to be called in to help with the return of some truly hideous bobble-head santa candlesticks), i have to say that the store as a whole was in a total state of disaster. call the governor and send the national guard... it looked like a tornado hit it.
there was crap lying all over the dressing room floors. there were shelves upon shelves of balled-up, wrinkled clothing (not to mention the dozens of shelves that were just totally empty). and words cannot even begin to describe the state of the rug aisle in the housewares department.
that said, it still appeared as if the quality of the stuff at kohls is slightly superior to that at target, may lightning strike me down. kohls seems to limit itself to clothing, housewares and jewelry, while target really is just a glorified wal-mart what with the cleaning supplies, DVDs and pharmacy. not that i'll stop shopping at target... god, no. but i'll be anxious to see what these newly-constructed kohls stores will be like, and if they quickly descend into the state of chaos that enveloped the one in raleigh.
by the way, with my kohls credit for the returned items i succumbed to my continuing quest for comfortable, sturdy support and bought yet another bra.
when i got home there were piles and piles of boxes on my front porch that had been mis-delivered by UPS. they were for our next-door neighbor, who we hadn't yet met. so ray & i lugged them over and rang the doorbell. (ray's courage was in no way swayed by the realization that the return address on the boxes was a division of amway.) the 2 people who answered the door (mom sheila and son-in-law ron) were very nice and immediately expressed their condolences for the tree in our roof last september. sheila said she heard it happen and it was so loud that she thought something landed on her house. talking about it with her caused all-too-real flashbacks of that horrid THUD! that i'll never, ever forget.
oh! i should mention that one of the boxes on our porch was actually for us... a christmas present from my immensely creative cousin joy. she put together this really cool gift "basket" for us: she melted an old record album (christopher cross - "sailing" :^) into a really groovy dish, and placed inside the most incredibly delicious tea i've ever had, some spice cookies, a beautiful star ornament and a yummy candle. thanks, joy!!
after dinner i made a point of watching A&E's show, airline, since rebecky mentioned it in her blog the other day. i enjoyed the program and i even caught ray sneaking a peek or two at it.
i do like reality shows, but this one really made me wonder (more so than others) just how much of what i was seeing was affected by the presence of cameras. the segment with the 3 flight attendants laughing and playing games with everyone in the cabin seemed just a little too silly and lighthearted. (though i do know from previous experiences on southwest flights that the employees do get goofy from time to time.) there were instances of customer service conflict, though, that did seem pretty real. (a manager kept demanding a birth certificate from the mother of a supposedly less-than-2-year-old boy, in order to prove that he was still young enough to fly for free... that was a pretty tense scene.)
after that and a late dinner, i went to bed. when i woke up this morning one of my pillows was on the floor. i looked at it and said "why are you down there??" sometimes i really wonder what goes on while i'm sleeping. a dozen or so years ago, i guess, i used to find pillows on the floor pretty often. but not latetly. what does it mean?
finally, ebay is back in my life. i don't know how it happened. wait, yes i do. i typed in "funky necklace" and the rest is history. in the last week or so i've won these three, for a total expense of $35.50 ... that's not bad, is it?
except that i'm also buying one from a local jewelry designer tonight. it was displayed in my hairdresser's salon when i was last there, and the designer is finally done lengthening it for me. when i get my hair cut tonight i'll pick it up. it has gorgeous brown beads with an antique square gold locket as a pendant. i'm not telling you how much this one costs.
Posted by xta at January 6, 2004 10:36 AM | TrackBack