No more Toysrus..

There are many reasons I dislike Toysrus. The whole warehouse idea of selling toys puts me off. It's faceless, cluttered, and not really fun. They sell piles of cheap plastic crap that is destined for landfills. The place is usually full of whining kids and stressed parents (kind of like Ikea). The staff, if you ever catch a glimpse of one, are holograms who hate their jobs and hate kids and go out of their way not to be helpful. Either that or they really don't know anything at all. I understand that kids like it...but kids are not particularly discerning. They need guidance. They'd eat ice-cream and cakes all day, jump of high walls, or into deep water without being able to swim. Kids like toys and toy stores. But nearly everything Toysrus sells has some TV/Movie logo on it and is part of a some global multi-national marketing machine.

But I will never shop at Toysrus in Vancouver again...EVER. Here is why....

Mark rushed in 10 minutes before it closed on the day before Bronwyn's birthday to buy a playmobil set for her birthday because the local toy store was closed. Of course their playmobil selection was beyond tragic. He couldn't find anything and, less than 10 minutes later, he left having brought a set of two super-soakers (one never worked from the get go, and the other one broke in about 10 minutes). Anyway...a whole month later and we get this in the mail...

A ridiculous parking fine. $70, with an additional $30 for something else ("costs direct or indirect incurred to enforce payment"). And we never even got a parking ticket. I have had parking tickets before....but never anywhere near $104. DPS are theives. We wouldn't have paid it at all (and they actually can't do a lot to you if you don't), but they run quite a few parking lots around here, including Safeway, and as we intend to keep our van for a while we need to use those parking lots without the worry of being towed. But not Toysrus..oh no...never again. Now I have another reason not to go to the toystore from hell and yet another reason to be glad that we mostly shop at local toys stores that sell (gasp!) quality toys.