“Yellow Submarine”
Ringo sang this song on the album Revolver, and it would become the basis for the animated film. BeatleSongs makes the case this was simply a children’s song that has been misinterpreted over the years. Tell Me Why compares the song to “one big Spike Jones charde.”
I have always liked the song, and oddly, the film. Chalk that up to being overly forgiving as a fan. Whatever. I saw the film on television at some point in my early childhood, and was struck by it. This isn’t necessarily what turned me on to the Beatles, but it did help.
What a month this has been. I’m kicking off this year’s Beatles Week with a children’s song, which is appropriate as I have a story to tell about my dealing with buying a child a present.
A little earlier this month Laura and I were going over what we were going to give our kids for Christmas. One of the things we decided on was a Hot Wheels Wall Track Starter Set for Ciárán. This was a very cool items, essentially it is as the name suggests, a Hot Wheels car track that mounts on the wall. While it may not be possible to create the same type of loop as you can with a track on the floor, being able to play on the wall has some advantages.
So we shop around online for this item. Amazon has it for $60. Toys R Us has it for $40. Seems like a no brainer, really. Our kids’ school sells “scrip” which is a gift card program where a portion of the sales are given back to the school. It’s a great fundraiser in that you are already spending the money anyway (groceries, restaurants, clothes, etc.) and this way you’re not spending more than you normally would, you budget out what you spend in a month, and a little bit of it gets kicked back to the school. It’s an all around win. Of course Toys R Us participates so we decide we’re going to get $200 worth of Toys R Us scrip and get several of our Christmas presents there.
I pick up the scrip, and it’s 10 gift cards of $20 each. Well, that’s annoying. It’s all that could be obtained on the short notice we gave. Armed with a wad of plastic I enter Toys R Us with a list. There are presents for August, Déla and Ciárán to purchase. Six items. I found three of them. One was not the Hot Wheels Wall Track Starter Set.
For a Wednesday afternoon in December, there was an awful lot of nobody working the store. Only two cashiers and one guy on the floor helping customers. I waited to get help, and when I was finally helped, it was fruitless. It wasn’t a complete waste of time, however, as I was able to pick up a phenomenal present for August at half off during a one day only sale. Still, after an hour and a half in the store, I was ready for it to be January. Checking out was a pain, since I had $20 gift cards.
Since I didn’t get half of what I intended, upon returning home Laura and I turned to the internet. We went to the Toys R Us website and ordered the item, along with a few others to were meant to round out the holiday shopping. No, we wouldn’t be done, but a far sight closer to it than we were when we woke up that morning. The website was obviously being hit hard, as a few of the things were out of stock, so we had to pick some alternates for the kids. But they did have the Hot Wheels Wall Track Starter Set. After placing our items in the virtual shopping cart, we proceeded to the checkout. This, again, was a pain in the nether regions entering in all of the gift card information repeatedly since they were in $20 increments. Still, it was a necessary bother to endure because we were getting the gift we wanted to give our child.
Then the email came almost immediately after the order was placed. We had to contact customer service. Something was wrong with our order. It wasn’t bad enough to spend 45 minutes online searching through the website, but now we had to call. And get placed on hold. And then finally talk to a service representative (whatever that means). A couple of the items we ordered were on backorder, and they didn’t know when the order would be filled. This in itself wasn’t a problem, but they for some reason would not be able to fulfill the part of the order that wasn’t on backorder. Namely, the one items we wanted from Toys R Us. We had a choice to make, either completely cancel the order, or wait and have no idea when these items would get back in stock and arrive after shipping (most likely according to the “service representative” some time in the middle of January).
We cancelled the order and had all of the gift cards brought back to their original value.
The next day I went back to Toys R Us, and what a difference a day makes. There were three or four people working the floor. granted, it was massively busy, but still, it was manageable. What I wanted they still didn’t have, but I was able to find out, through the help of one of the employees who took the time to actually help me, one of the other stores in the area did have the Hot Wheels Wall Track Starter Set. The employee called and asked if they would be able to get it transferred to their store. No luck, but fortunately they would hold it at the customer service desk. How long? I didn’t ask.
That night I drove up to Everett, which is 30-45 minutes away, depending on traffic. The Toys R Us there not only had the Hot Wheels Wall Track Starter Set waiting for me at the customer service desk, the person there was cheerful, and compiled all of the gift cards onto one.
After the time spent driving, on the internet, on the phone, and in the store, I have no basis for criticizing the lengths parents will go to in order to get their kids that perfect Christmas present.