Yes, I am a Grinch

[Captain Trips]

Panties.

Yup, panties.

Many years ago, when I worked for an inventory company (the Wonderful Inventory Service, not the Reasonably Good Inventory Service) and we had the contract for Frederick's of Hollywood. And I got to inventory their stock room. Imagine enough stock to fill a 6x8 room squeezed into a room the size of a phone booth. They had the panties and brassiers crammed onto j-hooks. (One of these hooks could hold a dozen each. They had crammed 40-50 per hook.) Imagine my joy on counting the musical panties. (This was before the invention of an "off" switch.) Every time you touched a pair, it went off with "Happy Birthday" or "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow."

I had to count them.

Each and every one.

A different SKU for different colors, I had to check each and every item on each and every j-hook.

By the time I got out of there, I was ready for the loony bin - how many different renditions of "Happy Birthday" can one person listen to at one time without going nuts? 75? 100? (And this was in the 80's, it was all that tinny plink-plink noise.)

You have my sympathies, and my (20 year belated) thanks.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Gee, way to be a three-decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwich with arsenic sauce.

[telecom_goddess]

I still remember chunks (as in blowing) of the TRS-80 Model I Voice Synthesizer accessory demon-stration spiel. Imagine a profoundly deaf harelip speaking with a monotone heavy German accent...

But it could swear pretty well...

Nope you have to imitate this sound and record it for us so we can hear

[Racket_Man]

Gee, way to be a three-decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwich with arsenic sauce.

You're a mean one Mr. IPF

[LillFilly]

Of course, I'm sure functioning, turned-on units are part of the plan-o-grams and the employees of the store will get in trouble if the displays of these things aren't working. So, they really can't win!

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

You're a mean one Mr. IPF

Only three words to describe me:

Stink. Stank. Stunk.

[wolfie]

Of course, I'm sure functioning, turned-on units are part of the plan-o-grams and the employees of the store will get in trouble if the displays of these things aren't working. So, they really can't win!

Such things are begging for "droplifters" like the Barbie Liberation Front a few years back (bought Barbie and G.I. Joe, switched voice synthesizers, then smuggled them back into stores and put them back on the shelf - result was Joe saying "Let's go shopping" or "Math class is tough", and Barbie saying "Dead men tell no tales").

Buy one (or more) of the push-button (too hard to make a getaway from a motion-activated) units, record Johnny Paycheck's signature song, then "donate" it to the display.

[Ironclad Alibi]

Buy one (or more) of the push-button (too hard to make a getaway from a motion-activated) units, record Johnny Paycheck's signature song, then "donate" it to the display.

That might make the doctored item a best seller. Then we'd have the SC's complaining about not getting the Johnny Paycheck song. Somehow I think it would be worth it.

[fireheart]

Better idea...record your own voice saying something very crude....

[XCashier]

Cooper feels your pain...

[Cooper]

I'm a child at heart, and I love poking things in a store (I don't take them down and leave them strewn about, I just have to touch them.) This habit was broken recently when I was in a small Pharmacy store where EVERYTHING talked.

I poke a teddy bear. It talks. I walk by a string of lights? They talk. I think I hid in the low-tech toys aisle until my friend was done getting his prescription.

EDIT:

Boy did you freak me out for a second xCashier. Yes, I do feel your pain! XD

[Ezio]

Since we moved into "New Big Store" we have multiple flat screen TV's playing whatever movie has just been released on DVD/Blu-Ray.

Last December I swear I saw both Lion King and Lion King 2 about a hundred times.

[Lovecats]

We had a (I think it was Mickey Mouse) in a glass case that you could press the button and make it sing one year. And, of course, every little kid HAD to press that stupid button. I was working in girls which was right by toys (and that stupid display) and was so very happy when it broke and stopped working. Really, I didn't go near it at all.

[Slave to the Phone]

I really hope that I'm not getting anyone in by doing this. I had hoped that the cashiers could say that they saw a customer shutting them off. Should I start loudly complaining about how those things are "ruining my shopping experience!!!" while I'm doing it?

As to the horror stories, I am so sorry that you folks have to deal with it. I don't work retail anymore, but I still have nightmares about it.

I am one of those people you see at the PetStores on the weekends, volunteering at pet adoptions. I've learned to accidently unplug the cord to the CD player whenever I go into the office. I only have to listen to that same CD playing 8 hours a week. I'm amazed that the poor folks who work there don't just go totally stabbity when they hear the dogs barking Christmas songs.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

That's terrible. I came to hate it after having to watch it three years in a row as a kid.

I grew to hate it for years afterwards after I was made to watch the damn movie 3 times in a ROW at my Dad's one weekend!!!

That was also the same weekend I had to suffer through the NKOTB crap (middle sis was into that.)

Got them both back the next morning . . . I hogged up the TV and VCR all morning and made them watch 4 hours in a row of "The Man From UNCLE."

And to this day neither my Dad or stepmom can comprehend WHY I have tv's and either vcr's or dvd players in several rooms of my house . . .