This post is a little bit quilty, but not so much, so I'm keeping it here. Back in July for my birthday my cousin-in-law (probably the cousin too) gave me a gift card for JoAnn Fabrics. I don't get there very often and I've been trying to think what I could buy that would make me happy that I probably wouldn't buy at a quilt shop. There are lots of choices actually :)
While I'm here in the wet land where they don't charge the 9% sales tax on goods, I decided I'd better think fast since I'm going home on Thursday. Aha, I can get the much-needed white/neutral flannel for my design wall. As it so happens, it's President's Day and they have a 60% off sale going on. How cool is that? I figured I needed around six yards to cover my 8' x 8' design wall. No problem. I find the fabric and walk to the cutting table.
There are two other ladies waiting as a third is getting her fabrics cut. I'm not paying much attention other than that those two ladies are ahead of me. At one point the cutter said something, but I wasn't paying attention at all. So the second gal goes up and gets her Velcro, but before getting it cut, the cutter tells her she could get a pre-cut 1 yard for about half the price and goes over and gets it off the shelf for her. Cool, that was nice. The third gal goes up and starts to get her fabrics cut and I realize that the cutter is saying "and you must be number 73" and I notice she changes the number on a machine up above the cutting table. I then notice another gal comes up and way at the end in a less than conspicuous place, is a machine that spits out the next number and she gets 74. I stay where I am, the cutter has clearly seen that I've been standing there through the first three people she's helped, and at that time only one more person "after me" had grabbed a number and that person then wanders off to peruse other areas of the store.
She finishes up #73 and proceeds to call #74 as a man walks up to get #75 and I move to the cutting table thinking this won't be a problem as she has seen me this entire time. This cutter starts to give me grief about not taking a number. I told her I didn't realize it was there until after #74 had pulled hers as #74 returns so she asks #74 if it's ok and still gives me words about the number and I told I had obviously been waiting there and she SAW me but never said a word about getting a number!
She finally asked me how much I wanted and told me what the discounted and then the total price would be - must be something they have to do now - and as she's finishing up, she starts giving me words AGAIN about the numbering machine. I told her I'd never been in this part of the store before and didn't know. I should have just kept my own tongue silent and given her 'that' look like 'really?' and this after she was so nice to the second gal. Touchy, touchy, touchy. And of all things, her name was Grace, of which she wasn't exhibiting much at that point, nor was I, I suppose.
Well, I politely took my fabric, and my ticket to the checkout counter and paid for my $14 and change purchase, with what? my gift card? NO!! I was so rattled I went into auto-pay mode and pulled out my CREDIT CARD! I guess I'll have my gift card for the next time I'm up here because I'm certainly not going back there today! The other item I considered purchasing was batting...it can wait, probably even until next President's Day and maybe Grace will have moved to greener pastures by then.
