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Published: December 27th 2010
When visiting a foreign domain it is important to partake in some of the local customs so as to learn more about our international neighbours and gain a greater appreciation of their way of life...so today we embraced a time honoured annual tradition started by this very nation and now copied to a lesser degree by even we in the antipodes...the great Boxing Day Sale!!!
And if you are going to enter into such an event, and only have one opportunity to do so, then of course you must select the venue or location that will best expose this national custom...our old friend the Florida Mall!! We have been twice now, the Saturday before Christmas and now Boxing Day...going on an ordinary trading day will be a terrible anti climax.
We did not head there for opening time, we are not completely stupid, but rather casually sauntered into the carpark around 3 pm...we left the car park shortly before 4 pm after having done extensive reconnaissance of the entire car park without successfully battling for one car park. And this in itself caused us to observe a bizarre metamorphisis...that of the polite, friendly and accomodating Floridovian or Orlandite driver into something similar to the 'bad characters' out of the Lord of the Ring trilogy. There was nothing polite, nor remotely friendly in the demeanour once they got off the roads and into the car park. In that environment we deemed it important to note this countries lax gun control laws and constitutional right to bear arms against any that threaten your home...does this extend to a car park you have informally labelled as your own??
So we left! And as we left, a short distance away the children, bless them, spotted a large TOYS R US so we went there instead. This establishment has a huge car park, spartan in occupation, and as my wife then noted - actually closer than some parts of the Florida Mall car park to Sears! Imagine my relief! We entered into TOYS R US for the kids to have a wander around and then walked across to Sears.
The men in our party clearly lack imagination or the connoisseurs sense for these things but this Sears looked remarkably similar to JC Penney, Macys and dare it be said, Farmers! Just a lot bigger than the latter of course. It wasn't busy at all (not!) as people were just standing around...actually they were queueing and some of these queues were more suited to the prime attractions at Universal Studios or Disneyworld rather than waiting to purchase boxer shorts adorned with the head of the Grinch and the phrase 'I've been naughty..' The particular person making this purchase is one that you really did not want to see modelling this teasey little phrase and I suspect the Grinch may have been just a little nervous about when his new owner planned to sit down.
It was a human tsunami! We stayed for around 45 minutes, purchased nothing and left. As we entered each new venue of mayhem Reubs and I sought out an unoccuppied corner and played monopoly on the ipod whilst Sandy went at it with the locals. Poor girl was outclassed I'm afraid. It's unpleasant and so impractical. The stores have all been trashed and the normally neatly folded and displayed stacks of clothing are now literally strewn over tables and the floor near by. Store assistants all look like they are suffering from post trauma stress disorder and no-one, neither customer or vendor are happy or enjoying the experience in the slightest.
We had considered going to the Animal Kingdom today but the weather was dry but bitterly cold with a biting wind. The coldest we have been so far on the trip perhaps...apart from one day in San Francisco or Gaylord Palms 'ICE' display.
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Poppa
non-member comment
ouch!!!!
sounds like a living nightmare. My sympathies to Michael and Rueben - not how the boys should have to spend Boxing Day even in pursuit of research into strange cultural habits especially those emanating from the land of the free or whatever they call it! Hope your next foray into a mall is more successful but as you know I try to avoid such places. Keep up the blogs! They are great. Lov to all.