Okay, I’ll concede that not all rules are stupid but you know the ones I’m talkin’ about. The rules that when questioned, when poked at, and when picked apart with a quick swipe of common sense, elicit not much more than a “these are the rules” retort from those tasked with ensuring they are never broken.
Here are three scenarios, all occurring within the past 10 days, that demonstrate how asinine rules-for-rules sake thinking can be.
#1: My mom had a brilliant idea to have a custom school uniform made, from scratch, for the Bear’s 18″ American Girl doll. Two uniforms in fact! One of a khaki skort and a forest green polo. The other of a dark green sweatsuit. The fabrics and colors mimic the Bear’s M-F attire. She and I take the doll and the clothes into the school uniform store to ask if they can do that heat press thing and emblazon the school logo onto the clothes. Nope. While all 5 store employees gathered around us, like a scholastic apparel lynch mob, only fawning instead of plundering, they were oohing and aahing while openly admiring the creativity of the idea and saying how much they “wish they could” because “it would be so cute!”. But that they cannot. Why? Oh, because it’s against the rules. We’re obviously not sneakily attempting to circumvent their monopolistic operation by buying cheaper school clothes than the overpriced, poor quality ones they peddle. We’re talking about doll clothes! Stupid rules.
#2: Barnes & Noble sends out a 50% off in-store coupon for a single item through Facebook. I never shop there, but heck, I can buy something for my sponsor-a-child child and save some dough. The coupon prints out as an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper with the top half being the actual coupon I’d remit at checkout, the bottom holds all the fine print (not valid on a NOOK, bargain books, etc). At the bottom of the actual coupon portion it states “Expires 11/7”. Clear enough. So the girls and I go in around 5pm on 11/7 and pick something out. The cashier tells me that the coupon expired at 2:59am. That’s the middle of the night in case you too are confused right now. And he’s technically correct because buried in the fine print that is what it says. But what the hell! Doesn’t this mean it expired on 11/6 since the last time I checked my Barnes & Noble isn’t selling books and coffee at 2am. If I’d cut the paper in half along the dotted line that fine print section would’ve been gone. He didn’t seem to appreciate the sheer idiocy of the situation as he let me walk out without buying a thing. Stupid big box store. Stupid rules.
#3: Another store we don’t usually support, Toys-R-Us, has a 2-day only Skylanders deal that we’d like to take advantage of. Hey, indie toy stores are selling the video game product – what can I do? The signage in the gigantic Skylanders sections of Toys-R-Us, of which there was plenty (on every single peg!), stated: “Friday and Saturday Only – Free character pack with purchase of Adventure Pack – up to an $8.99 value”. Seems easy enough, right? We decide on 1 of 2 available Adventure Packs (each priced at $19.99), pick a single character pack to get for free, and proceed to the register. It was about 6pm. The cashier first tells me that this was a “doorbuster” deal that was only until 10am. The sign said “Friday and Saturday Only” with no mention of times of day or of the word “doorbuster”. She runs off to check with someone wiser after I drop some knowledge on her that 1) the abundant signage didn’t mention a word of any of that and 2) if that was the case, you’ve had 8 hours to take the fucking signs down. That’s a you problem, not a me problem. Anyway, she comes back to inform me that the deal is only valid when you buy the other Adventure Pack, that the SKU # was on the signs. Oh that was just too precious. Silly me for reading “purchase of an Adventure Pack” literally and not double checking the SKU. Each Adventure Pack has it’s own name; was that name on the sign? Of course not. Did the stupidity of this situation dawn on the cashier? Of course not. Did we buy anything? Of course not. Stupid big box store. Stupid rules.
So what have we learned? That I need to remain steadfast in my hatred of big box stores, yes. And that some rules and those charged with enforcing them are in a heated battle for the championship of stupid.
