Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Inspirational Shopping?

The receipt offered me a 15 percent discount on a subsequent visit to a particular children's apparel store if I spent a few minutes doing an online survey. Nearly every receipt I get these days wants me to do a survey (some offering nothing as compensation for my time, others offering "a chance," something about like one in a billion, to win fabulous prizes) and I usually don't bother with them. But this was a surefire, bird-in-the-hand discount for a store I would probably be visiting again anyway. So I went online and entered my "secret code" to begin the survey. As such things go, this one was relatively unannoying, except that the survey answers sometimes need explanation, but don't allow you a chance to explain. You either were "very satisfied" or "not at all satisfied" or somewhere in between. No chance to explain that the reason you didn't use the fitting room was that you were buying clothes for a grandson and didn't need to try them on. So I was "very satisfied" with the fitting room. However, the one question that pushed me over the edge was the one asking me how inspirational my visit to this store had been. Inspirational? Had I stumbled into the Sistine Chapel by accident? Things that inspire me are natural beauty (the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls) or artistic beauty (Beethoven's "Ode to Joy," a Monet, Van Gogh) or words that resonate (Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, the Beatitudes), or the accomplishments of my children and grandchildren, etc. But a visit to a clothing store at an outlet mall? Inspirational? Only I suppose if you worship the God of Mammon. And I haven't been to that church for a long, long time.

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