Meet my brother, Brandon.
Brandon and his friends are typical rural Minnesota men when it comes to Christmas shopping. They don’t do it. Or, they don’t do it well anyway. Their tradition goes something like this:
They meet together on a day probably as close to Christmas as possible and spend that afternoon sitting at Applebee's in the mall, eating and drinking. The long afternoon hours are shortened with the entertainment created by short bursts of timed relays every half an hour or so in which select participants race through the mall in search of, not the perfect gift for the next person on their list, but any gift that might somehow suffice, and try to make it back before the clock runs out. Thoughtful, eh?
I don’t want to know how long they each get to find and make their purchase before returning to the restaurant, but my gift from Brandon a few years ago might provide a hint. It was a board game, which would normally be a great gift idea for me. I don’t remember any longer what game it was exactly, since I ended up returning it shortly after Christmas. What was wrong with it? Nothing, other than the fact that it was a children’s edition, a fact to which Brandon was completely oblivious. Under normal circumstances I would have thought he had purchased it on purpose as a joke of some kind. Not this time though. The clock was ticking.
If only these men lived in Scotland. Here there are no Applebee's restaurants, and while there are malls, the men wouldn’t make use of them. They wouldn’t have to. Scotland boasts something much more convenient than the mall, and even more convenient than the internet with its auxiliary shipping and return hassles.
Scotland has Argos - the culturally acceptable, completely convenient, time efficient and hassle-free, one-stop-shop for all your yearly Christmas shopping.
Imagine most of what one might find on the shelves at Wal-Mart conveniently listed in a catalogue at your fingertips…
a catalogue no more than twenty feet from the counter at which you purchase your selections…
a counter only ten feet from where someone will bring to you your purchases before stamping your receipt and sending you on your way.
Once in the store, you’ve walked the maximum distance of 30ft while someone else brought all of your purchases to you.
Who needs Applebee's when you have Argos?
No comments:
Post a Comment