Shopping Adventure?

Shopping, in general, sucks.  I can’t stand dealing with other shoppers, long checkout lines, rude cashiers, etc.  But yesterday, all of that changed when I went with a co-worker and two students to Fleet Farm.  What began as  a routine shopping trip for supplies turned into something of an adventure.

I’ve only been in Fleet Farm a couple of times and it’s a very interesting place.  They have everything from water and candy (which we purchased) to chains, horse saddles, and blue jeans.  I’ve never seen a store have such a diverse group of items under its roof, yet it all somehow makes sense.  I guess it’s not entirely impossible that someone would have all these items on the same shopping list?

To make it even more interesting are the customers.   For example, the gentleman who thought one of us was delivering a baby in the aisle.  We were laughing hysterically about some random comment I made when around the corner comes a gentleman saying, “Is someone having a baby in here?  With all the laughing going on I thought someone was having a baby.”  What the f@*k?!  I don’t know where he was when his wife was popping out babies but I can tell you from personal experience no laughter was coming out of me.  Lots of fluids and screaming, no giggles.

I’m guessing the guy either was in another room during his wife giving birth, or she was in a dentist’s office being doped up with laughing gas.  There’s no way in hell a normal woman would be laughing hysterically while squeezing a watermelon out of a pea hole.  I was so shocked by the comment I didn’t know whether to laugh or call for security.

If that wasn’t interesting enough, I went to the customer service desk to get some help when I noticed the list of hunting licenses that can be purchased.  Looked pretty typical at first:  deer, pheasant, duck.  But, upon further inspection, I noticed a license for “snipe and rail” hunting.  No idea what that is.  Then, I see a bear license listed next to one for a mourning dove.  Huh?

I can just picture the scene…hunters all dressed in camouflage next to a campfire drinking beer and contemplating the next day’s hunt.  “Alright, Ned.  We got the bear today.  It was a mighty fight, but we got ’em.  I say tomorrow, we really challenge ourselves and go for the elusive and ominous mourning dove.  He’s escaped us for so long, but tomorrow, the dove’s ours.”  Imagine them stuffed on the wall next to each other:  the mighty bear and the decimated carcass of a dove.  Beautiful.

I have to say I was so thoroughly entertained by Fleet Farm and its customers that I can’t wait to go back.  This store has changed my life and given me a new-found love of retail..and all things fluorescent orange.