August 24, 2004

• Babies “R’nt” Me

  
  

  This Saturday I’m going to a baby shower for spekkle and his wife.  Normally, I would avoid anything to do with babies and showers, and especially the two together.  But my guy friends strad and eshuang are also committed, and I feel obliged to endure it with them in a show of masculine solidarity.

  
  

  The lucky couple registered at Babies “R” Us, so the lucky attendees got to visit the store to buy gifts.  Prior to this experience, I always wondered about geographical gender distributions.  I mean there are supposedly more women than men in the world, and yet places like Alaska and the Bay Area have a disproportionate number of men.  So where are the women?  The answer is: they are all at Babies “R” Us.

  
  

  The store itself is unfriendly to bachelors, though.  Allow me to elaborate in painstaking detail.  Last night I went to the store and even before entering, I was confronted with this confusing sign:

  
  

  

  
  

  Growing up in the States, I’m conditioned to interpret a red circle with white bar as “Do Not Enter.”  (Except perhaps in Boston.)  But babies evidently aren’t born with those prejudices (the tabula rasa argument) so they have no problems entering the store.

  
  

  Once inside, I was overcome with a wave of pastel but managed to find the Baby Registry computer.  Computers cannot hide from The Machine Master, no matter how cleverly disguised (a la Apple).  There two women were waiting for a printout.  And waiting.  And waiting.  And waiting.  The “printer” was slower than a box of underfed dyslexic gremlin monks.  Pages per minute?  Shoot — I could have had my own babies by the time that registry was done printing.

  
  

  Finally they collected their 9-page registry (9 pages???  When all babies want is a warm blanket and a full nipple, only one of which is sold in the store?).  Then I went to the computer, only to find out it was out of paper.  And how did it tell me it was out of paper?  It waited until I went through all the menu screens and hit “Print Registry.”  Then without any message or warning, it cleared the info and went back to the home screen to lure the next unsuspecting customer.  Imagine going to the supermarket, filling your cart, and going to the checkout only to find that the cashier was a cardboard cutout of Bill Clinton.  Who designed this interface — the Inquisition?

  
  

  So I decided to go with a gift card instead, and went to look for a card to enclose said gift card.  They didn’t have any such greeting cards (though I’m sure I could create a wildly unsuccessful line of baby greeting cards myself) so I decided to go all Martha-Stewart-like and get a picture frame to house the gift card.  I picked up the frame, brought it to the cashier, and watched her ring it up with the gift card.  The frame rang up $3 over.  I pointed this out to the cashier, who came with me to the display.  She didn’t believe that the frame was the one with the listed price, though it clearly said “Teddy Bear Frame” and there was a teddy bear on that frame.  But she gave it to me for the Teddy Bear Frame tag price.

  
  

  Finally, the credit card touchscreen was miscalibrated.  So you have to tap the leftmost quarter of the OK button to confirm your transaction.  Leaving me to tap on the button repeatedly, worrying that I’m racking up multiple transactions of gift cards and Teddy Bear Frames.

  
  

  Maybe for the next baby shower, I’ll knit some socks instead.

  • 6:16 pm
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