Toys Are Not Us

Last year I got all of the niece and nephew's presents in Toys R Us on 23rd December and spent £230.

I promised myself I would be way more organised this year... It wasn't to be... I was in there on 22nd December ONLY a day earlier but I did spend £128.... big improvement which reflects our circumstances.

The reason I gave this blog post the title that I did is twofold.

One because this was the sign I was faced with before entering the store:

Yet this (below) is the only thing that I saw that was half price (nothing I bought was even though I bought for six kids).

They were heavily promoting Furby as below.  We've all been wondering on Facebook for months: why is Furby making a comeback? No idea!

I was glad to see they have learned from last year.

Last year there was no festive spirit in there. Whereas this year someone was dressed up as Santa and the staff had Santa hats on.

The queues were horrific, but what really got me was I bought Aaron a Disney Cars' "Mater" and it was priced up as 99p yet when the cashier scanned it she scanned the £3.99 one twice.

After going through the till I saw it on the receipt and went to Customer Services, where I queued for FIFTEEN MINUTES where there was only ONE person on duty and her attitude stank.

When I finally got to the top of the queue I told her I'd waited 15 minutes for a problem caused by the cashier.  I said I wouldn't mind queueing if I was refunding or exchanging.  Her response to this was to tell the queue to "bear with me I am on my own".

I couldn't believe she was apologising to people who'd ONLY just joined the queue and not to me.

Then when she put my issue through the till she handed me a £1 and I said "shouldn't that be £3" - she just said "oh yeah" rifled in the till and begrudgingly gave it to me.

I'd bumped into my Dad and his wife in there and they said complain to a Manager but Aaron and his Dad were waiting in the car and I could not make them wait any longer and I knew blogging about it would be more effective and cathartic anyway.

Hopefully the nieces and nephews will love their presents.

Hopefully 2013 I will shop online or find an alternative toy shop.

Merry Christmas to you and yours,

Liska xx