Eric and I went to REI this evening because we needed some slightly better sleeping bags than the clammy garbage bag-esque ones we took camping last time. I love poking around REI and looking at all the super-specific gear you can buy--teeny tiny stoves! campfire espresso cups!--but their fixation on their membership program creeps me out. The woman who was helping us spent more time talking about the benefits of a $20 membership than the benefits of the sleeping bags we wanted to buy.
Every time I've ever gone into an REI, every person we come in contact with is pushing those damn memberships. It's so great...join us...you get to go to the member sales...join us...you can return items without a receipt at any time for any reason...join us and our legion of hollow-eyed Gore-Tex-clad adventurers... Actually, the return policy is pretty kick-ass, but nothing is that amazing. Either they get great bonuses for signing people up, or there are mass floggings at closing time when they don't make quota.
You don't care about any of that, though, and you are right not to, because that's actually really boring. I feel kind of bad about this, but the truth is you just read the previous two paragraphs for no reason other than that I'm too lazy to delete it all and think of a better introduction for the next thing I'm going to write, which you might care about more:
While I was busy goofing off in the tent aisle, Eric saw Angelina Jolie in REI today with a kid and an assistant in tow. That's a pretty good celebrity sighting, if you ask me, even if you don't care about Angelina Jolie; Eric doesn't.
Still, it's an interesting thing to have happen, to look up from signing your credit card slip and see someone as famous as Angelina Jolie just standing there a few feet away. I wonder if they asked her to buy a membership too.
I said he should have asked if he could rub her stomach, "just for luck." He said no, he would never do something like that, because the polite thing to do would be to reach over and and start rubbing it and ask, "Is it Brad's? 'Cause that's sooo awesome! OW WHY ARE YOU HITTING ME?"