Royalty Universe. » Shopping

Needy Kids are No problem

Shopping Blogs — Sat, 08 May 2010 12:24:29 +0000

Are you sick and tired of providing for your overly needy kids? Do you feel like you’ve given them enough, and that they need to start learning how to make it on their own? You know what? I agree! Kids are too needy! You’ve given them too much! And it’s time to really put your foot down—just don’t put your foot down on your kids, because, well, that’s illegal nowadays; it’s illegal in most states, anyway. Check your local law books, people!

At any rate, we’re back with another fantastic episode of A Guide to Responsible Parenting. As always, my name is Robert Belter. This week, we’re going to tackle one of the subjects that you men and women write in about all the time: whether or not you should be buying presents for your kids. You know what? I’ve already said too much. I’m already taking up too much of your time, here. I’m sorry, I’m just really happy. My lawyer told me that everything is going to be all right, and well… Well, that’s just great to hear. I was in a world of trouble, folks. I really couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.

But enough of that! Our producer is getting angry! Let’s go ahead and take the first question.

“How do you feel about video games ? Are they bad for my kids?”

I’ll you what: you’re bad for your kids if you’re willing to spend your hard-earned money on this kind of junk. What are you teaching them? I mean, really. ‘Hey little Billy, don’t worry about buying food when you’re a grown up. Just worry about buying little blue CDs that you plug into your fun box because they help you ignore your problems!’ No! If you’re buying these stupid things for your kids, it’s like you’re plugging their ears. It’s like you’re filling them up with candy, but not the good kind that they can actually eat. If you’re even thinking about wasting your money on these things, you could stand to learn lesson from my father: there’s a glue factory in every state—send your kids to work.

“But what about infants and toddlers . Don’t they have special needs?”

Look, the concept isn’t tricky, folks. Your infants and toddlers can learn everything they need to know at work. Do you want your kid to grow up and make middle management at your local shoe factory? Do you want your kid to grow up and make you proud by excelling at the fine art of industrial adhesives manufacturing? Then you can’t just stand around waiting for good things to happen. You have to take control of your own situation and put those little babies to work. They’ll thank you someday.

“Should I bother with getting health aids for my kids? If they’re going to be working in a factory, shouldn’t I make sure that they’re safe?”

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a common misconception. Just because your kids are going to be working around dangerous machinery for eight to fourteen hours a day, doesn’t mean that you’re going to have to worry about buying anything special for them. I mean, really. Some of the factories that you come across are going to have bandages and gauss and peg legs—all the basics. If you’re lucky, you might even be able to find a place that offers decent benefits—you know, gloves, helmets, that sort of thing. But really, the workplace is going to keep your kids safer than your own home.

Well, folks, we’re just about out of time, here. Until next time, I’m Robert Belter, wishing you a happy day and a happy family!

Brought to you by :

Online Shopping : http://www.royaltyuniverse.com/links.html

Shopping Blog : http://blog.royaltyuniverse.com/

Disclaimer: This entry / entries are for sole purpose of entertainment . It is not meant to give any sort of advice / advise . We makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, correctness, suitability, or validity of any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis. Please use at your own risk . Some of the links mentioned within this post or posts may lead to our own sites and or affiliate links . In such case we will get compensated for recommending those products. However, we will never recommend something that we don't personally believe in and we welcome your questions and feedback.

The Man Who Had Too Much

Shopping Blogs — Fri, 07 May 2010 13:43:13 +0000

Patricia absolutely hates shopping for her husband, Mark. And no, it’s not because they have a terrible relationship. Quite the opposite, really. Patricia and Mark are deeply in love. They’re the envy of all of their friends and family, and for good reason. Mark made his money young—he retired by the bright young age of twenty seven—and as a result, he’s free to spend all of his days with his wife. And boy, did Mark make quite a bit of money.

Really, that’s the heart of the issue, here: Mark made a lot of money. Some people even say that Mark made too much money, and too quickly. There’s hardly a thing on Earth that Mark hasn’t purchased for himself at this point. In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll go over a few of the things that Mark has purchased for himself.

Monitors . Many people have begun to think that Mark is, well, a tad obsessive. With his enormous wealth, he has managed to cover nearly ever square foot of his home with LCD displays. Stock tickers and sports highlights follow Mark up the stairs when he’s going to bed. Mark wakes up to an artificial version of the sun each and every morning, broadcast in all of its pixilated, LCD glory. When Mark watches a movie, it’s almost as if the movie is watching him. You just can’t get away from it.

PC Laptops . When Mike started making more money than he could ever hope to spend, he began treating computers as if they were disposable. Mark has so many computers that he’s taken to using them in particularly unconventional ways. He uses them to prop the doors open in his massive home. He and his dog play catch with them. He uses them as coasters and paper weights. It’s rumored that he once tried to pay for his dinner with an armload of PCs.

PDAs . Mark always hated these things, but that never stopped him from buying them by the truckload. Back in 1995, Mark figured that these would make for excellent gifts. He’d give them to people who had trouble organizing their day, and to people whom he didn’t like. As fate would hate it, Mark simply ran out of friends. He no longer needed these as gifts. Now, he’s hooked them all up to their own printers . Whenever Mark gets a text message, it get printed out. Such is the enormity of Mark’s wealth.

With all of this in mind, it’s much easier to understand why Patricia, Mark’s wife, absolutely hates shopping for him. Sure, they’re in love. Sure, she’d love to see the look on his face when she finally managed to buy him something that he didn’t already own. And sure, it’d be a personal victory for her—proof that Mark didn’t own the entire world, and that, when pressed, she could solve a problem quite well on her own.

As she walked through the mall, staring at the many, many products that she and Mark already owned, she was struck by an epiphany. It was true, she thought, that Mark already owned all of the gadgets and toys that any man could ever want. It was true that if money could buy his present, then money had bought his present. And it was true that Mark had made his money far too quickly.

But there was one thing—one simple, priceless thing—that she and Mark did not already have: infants and toddlers .

Grateful for her epiphany, and proud of her victory, Patricia left the mall knowing that, for once, she’d be able to surprise Mark.

Brought to you by :

Shopping : http://www.royaltyuniverse.com/

Passion

Shopping Blogs — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 11:27:52 +0000

We all have our passions. Some of us are voracious readers (though if you’re a real “voracious reader,” you’re not going to describe yourself that way). Some of us love the outdoors—you know, hiking through a nice park; a nice garden ; along a nice trail. Some of us enjoy shopping until we can barely lift one leg and put it in front of the other. But you know what? None of us are like Sam. Sam does not like anything that we like. If you ever met him, he’d be sure to tell you. That’s how be begins every conversation.

You see, Sam has sworn off virtually everything that people like you and I do for fun. He’s sworn off most things that you and I do to, well, stay alive, too. He isn’t a huge fan of cooking, so he doesn’t cook. He eats microwavable meals, and microwaveable meals only—and not nearly as often as he should (or maybe it’s too often; I can never seem to remember). His isn’t a very big fan of health aids or personal hygiene, so, predictably enough, he ignores these as well. And before you even bother to ask: no, Sam has never pursued a relationship with any other human being. Men and women are to Sam what unicorns and candy corn are to the rest of us: interesting ideas, but critically flawed in their presentation and execution. No, no—Sam will not participate in such lowly, stupid endeavors. At least, that’s what he tells himself.

And at this point, reader, you are probably beginning to wonder what Sam does like. I hardly expect that you’ll be shocked to find out that Sam is an avid—one might say rabid— video games fan. The amount of money that Sam has spent on his gaming habit would stagger most.

In 1995, he purchased a life size, bipedal war tank. This tank, you should know, hooked up to a computer system that Sam built himself. He had to mortgage his home to buy the $85,000 beast, but to Sam, this expense was justified. For hours and hours, Sam would traverse the world’s that he’d created for himself, scoffing at the less fortunate souls of the world—those pitiful, broken souls who couldn’t experience the magic of a life size, bipedal war tank crashing its way across the purple terrain of Globovak, the planet that Sam had coded himself.

And really, Sam’s egotism boils down to a rather fine point, a point that he holds dear: his knowledge of life, the universe, and all things sci-fi gives him, he thinks, a greater understanding of the actual world in which he lives. It is easy for Sam to scoff at the naysayers because he knows that they are, at the end of the day, just earthlings. They lack his superior knowledge of the universe; thus, their jokes—their mean spirited comments—are immaterial. They barely understand their own world because they simply haven’t encountered anything else, ever.

At the present moment, Sam is engaged in these very thoughts. He peers out his window and sees a little girl walking her dog. He laughs, confident that she doesn’t appreciate her dog; that she doesn’t know her world like he does. He peers across the road. An older man is getting his mail. He does this every afternoon at the same time. His life—his understanding—is so limited.

With these thoughts floating around in his mind, Sam is completely started by something he sees and cannot identify. He knows that he should know this. He’s seen these things before. But for some reason, his game-fueled knowledge of the world just isn’t pulling through.

Do you want to know what Sam can’t identify, reader? A tree.

A Guide To Avoiding Stalkers

Shopping Blogs — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 11:40:35 +0000

Welcome, welcome, one and all, to the greatest show that ever was, and ever will be! What are we talking about? We’re talking about A Guide to Responsible Living, of course—your number one source of domestic advice! I’m your new hard, Carla Mackey, and I’m here to show you why your home isn’t living up to its full potential.

I’m replacing our older host. We won’t speak of him, or what he did. What we will do, though, is wish him plenty of luck. He’s taking a “vacation” for at least twenty five years, but he might be gone for the rest of his life! That’s how good our benefits are around here! I’m not lying!

But, no. Seriously… We wish him well.

At any rate, we’ve got a packed show today, so we’d better get straight to the questions. Call number one, you’re on the air!

“Oh, hi Carla. I was just wondering what I should do with all of my old home furnishings . I was thinking about rent a space to keep them in, but I thought that you might have a better idea of how I could put them to use. Thanks!”

That’s an excellent question, caller number one. Have you ever heard of a rock garden before? I bet that you have. You know what’s terrible about them? They’re so uninviting! You can’t find a place to sit; it gets so hot in the summer; it gives your stalker a perfectly easy way to break your living room window! Well, you know what you can do to freshen them up? You can stick all of your old furniture out there! Just stick it out there, right in the middle of the rocks. It looks great, and it’ll keep the stalkers at bay.

Next caller!

“Yeah. I was wondering if you had any advice on how I can get the most use out of my kitchen . What in the world can I do to liven that place up?”

Fruits! Lots of nice, ripe fruits! Sure, they’re going to come with a healthy dose of fruit flies, but that’s the price you pay for a beautiful culinary space. And if you’re like me, you know that your stalker hates the smell of ripe and rotting fruit. He just won’t come near my window when I stuff the place full of fruit. What a bizarre phobia, right audience?

Next caller!

“Carla, I just can’t figure out how to liven up my driveway. It’s so dreadful out there. I tried cutting down all of the trees and covering my back yard in blacktop, but it’s still ugly as sin! What can I do to fix it?”

Well, caller, if you’re even the slightest bit like me, you’re going to cover your driveway in pet supplies and building supplies . Pet foods and toys imply that you’ve got a big, scary attack dog inside of your house, and sheet wood and nails imply that you own a hammer! That’s all you need to keep those stalkers out of your chimney!

And on that note, viewers, I think that we’re just about out of time. Feel free to join us next week for another exciting topic: home security! That’s right. We’re going to guide you through the process of installing security cameras, electric fences, and laser cannons around your home—and all on a budget!

We’ll also discuss the importance of welding your windows shut and installing ten locks on your front door! And we’ll show you how to install a trap door in your car, so it’ll only look like you’re leaving for work.

We’ll see you next time!

Brought to you by :

Shopping : http://www.royaltyuniverse.com/information_center.html

Its fun, and its For the Whole Family

Shopping Blogs — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:35:11 +0000

Are you looking around for the perfect vacation package for you and your family? Have you become frustrated with the generic vacation packages that you’ve found so far? Are you worried that your entire family might leave you if you mess up their vacation plans one more time? Well, if you’ve answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, then you can rest assured that you have finally arrived at the right place: the Tiger Powered Cruise Boat of Love! That’s right: our cruise boat is going to fix all of your vacation problems and save your family!

You’ve never come across a cruise ship that’s quite like ours—we guarantee it! The Tiger Powered Cruise Boat of Love is no misnomer! First of all, our cruise boat is powered by actual, endangered tigers! That’s right! As we float around the ocean, you can lounge about on the deck knowing that one of Earth’s most rare and illustrious creatures is being worked to the point of death just a few floors below your feet! If that doesn’t make you feel a little bit exotic, we don’t know what will!

Are you scared that the tigers might get out of their cages? Does it worry you to bring your entire family onto a tiger infested boat? Well, it shouldn’t! We’ve taken extra precautions to make sure that your family is not going to be at risk! The tigers are given heavy doses of sedatives and hypnosis, so they’re not going to be able to break out of their cages without a miracle! And even if they do, the floors outside of their cages are electrified. You and your family can rest assured that even infants and toddlers are going to be safe! If those tigers somehow manage to break free, you’ll be eating tiger for dinner that very night!

Men , are you worried that your relationships are on the rocks because you’ve failed to demonstrate your masculinity over the years? Do you think a triumphant display of hyper-masculinity can turn your relationship around? Then boy, do we have the thing for you! Our tiger-powered cruise ship comes equipped with a full-size Roman gladiator arena! That’s right: you can fight other men to the death to prove to your women that you know what they want! Just sign our death waiver when you board the ship and prepare yourself for the relationship that you’ve always wanted!

Girls , are you looking to avoid the intrusive, pimple-faced gazes of those terrible boys at school? Well, our tiger-powered cruise ship can give you the privacy and freedom that you’ve always wanted. There’s an all-girls section of the boat that you can use to shut the blinds on that terrible male gaze!

We can’t stress it enough, folks: our tiger-powered cruise ship is all about safely. Our life boats are perfect for your strollers, so you’ll never have to worry about what you’re going to do with the kids when our invariably unstable captain steers our ship into dangerous, uncharted waters!

But don’t just take our word for it! Listen to one of our happy customers!

“The Tiger Powered Cruise Boat of Love really turned my life around. Before my wife and I went on this fantastic trip, I wasn’t sure if we were going to make it through the year. I knew I had to do something drastic, so I signed myself up for the gladiator arena. My wife thought it was really romantic. I look forward to a happier relationship when I’m released from intensive care.”

Don’t let your live take yet another terrible turn! Come on our cruise and look forward to a brighter tomorrow!

Brought to you by :

Discount Joe and Full Price

Where do you work?

Shopping Blogs — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:29:44 +0000

Do you work at an electronics outlet? If so, are you sick and tired of dealing with all of those pesky, uneducated customers? Are you tired of responding to “urgent” house calls only to find out that you have to reprogram yet another VCR clock? Well, wake up! It’s time for you to make a life-altering change with our new, wonderful product: the Electronics Outlet Automatic Helper Robot. Our Helper Robot is going to be able to make your aches and pains a thing of the past!

Don’t believe me? Well, hear me out!

First of all, our Automatic Helper Robot looks just like a real person! Well, let’s say that is looks enough like a real person to fool those pesky senior citizens who keep asking you about your printers / scanner combos! Simply place your Automatic Helper Robot in the isle of your choosing and wait for it to kick into gear! It’ll automatically flag people over and make sure that you don’t have to lift a finger!

Having trouble explaining the concept of flash memory to your elderly customers? No problem! Our Automatic Helper Robot can be customized to meet your needs—and your attitude. If you want to teach your customers a little lesson, simply flip a switch and set your Robot to “aggressive” mode. Before you know it, your robot will be insulting your elderly customers right out through the front door. When they ask about your memory, your Automatic Helper Robot will ask about theirs, and that’s guaranteed to offend!

Are those pesky senior citizens clogging up your monitors isle? Is their constant squinting and yammering beginning to grate against your very soul? No problem! Simply flip a switch and set your Automatic Helper Robot to “clearance” mode. It’ll make its way over to the isle of your choosing and begin raising your prices at an astonishing rate. If that doesn’t clear out those pesky senior citizens, your Helper Robot will begin to remind them of how much they used to pay for a loaf of bread “back in the good old days”. Soon, they’ll be too angry to stay in your store, and your section will be cleared!

Are PC laptops and PDAs the bane of your very existence? Are you sick and tired of explaining that their size does not connote their power? Does it drive you to the point of insanity when your senior citizen customers mistake the fish tank screensaver for an actual fish tank? Well, your problems are as old as they are! With our Helper Robot, you can make sure that senior citizens don’t congest your isles! If your fish screen saver is mistaken for an actual fish tank, your Helper Robot will falsely explain that it is an actual fish tank, and that if they aren’t looking to buy a fish tank, they’ve come to the wrong store! Never before have you seen customers leave with such blinding speed!

Just ask one of our many happy customers!

“Yeah, I never really liked dealing with customers. I mean, I know it’s my job to help people find the products and services that they’re looking for, but I’m fairly certain that it’s not in my job description. And I mean, I’m not just some guy that they hired off the street! I mean, I have actual qualifications! I went to the community college; I dropped out, but I went! Anyway, my Helper Robot solved all of my problems. I guess that’s why they fired me and kept him on board…”

Don’t let another minute go by! Call now and buy your Helper Robot today!

Brought to you by :

Discount Joe and Full Price

Where do you work?

Shopping Blogs — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 19:00:25 +0000

Don’t believe me? Well, hear me out!

Just ask one of our many happy customers!

Don’t let another minute go by! Call now and buy your Helper Robot today!

Brought to you by :

Shopping Stories : http://blog.royaltyuniverse.com/category/fictional-stories/shopping-fictional-stories/

Parents Listen Up

Shopping Blogs — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:31:31 +0000

Welcome to A Guide to Responsible Parenting. I’m your host, Robert Belter. Each week, we tackle some of your most difficult parenting questions. We care about you, and we care about your kids. That’s why we do what we do. I have to be honest, folks. I have a court appearance in a couple of hours, so we’re going to get right to it this week. They hate it when you show up late to court, you know? Especially when you’re facing a felony. Man, they take those felonies serious! It’s all right though. They don’t have any evidence. They’ll never prove a thing. I’m a responsible parent, you know? I know how to teach them who’s boss without leaving a bruise, if you know what I mean.

But I’ve already said too much! My lawyers flagging me down over there… So, uh, let’s go ahead and start the show. I’d hate for this stupid show to land me back in the pen … All right! All right! I’m starting the show. Jeez. Just read the first question, O.K?

“How do you feel about cribs and bassinets ? Are they worth it?”

What kind of question is that? Of course they’re not worth it! I tell you what, if you start babying your babies, they’re going to get used to it. You know? Let me tell you a little story. When I was a kid, my dad didn’t bother with any of that fancy stuff. You know what I slept on? I slept on a wooden board that he propped up with a couple of cinder blocks. He gave me a cabbage to use as a pillow. I’d wake up every morning with splinters and bruises, and my neck hurt something terrible. But you know what? That was an experience. That was a valuable experience. When my dad kicked me out on the streets when I turned eight, I knew what I had to do. I was tough. Don’t baby your kids.

“How do you feel about strollers ?”

Well, that question is kind of similar, don’t you think? I hate them! That’s how I feel about them! When I was growing up, my dad made me walk. He tried to make me walk even when I couldn’t walk. You know how he did that? He tied a piece of yarn around my ankle and drug me down the sidewalk. And you know what? I learned how to walk when I was three years old. I’m a quick learner, and I thank my dad for that.

“Should I buy my kid toys ?”

Absolutely not. Your kids can play with whatever you’ve got lying around the house. You know what my dad gave me to play with? Do you? A sock full nails. That thing was fun, and he didn’t pay a dime for it. He knew when to spend money on his kids: never. I love and respect my father for refusing to spend money on me. It made me stronger.

“Should I worry about buying video games for my infants and toddlers ?”

Oh, for crying out loud! No! Don’t buy this kind of junk for your kids! If they’re old enough to want this kind of stuff, they’re old enough to work. It’s just as simple as that. When they start asking for stuff, you send them off to work in the glue factory. That’s where my dad sent me, and it made me stronger. I love him for that.

Anyway, folks, we’re just about out of time, here. I’ve got to make my court appearance or I’m going to lose everything. So, until next time… Enjoy yourselves, and don’t give those little brats a dime!

Brought to you by :

Online Comparison Shopping : http://www.discountjoe.com/

Funny Jobs

Shopping Blogs — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 17:45:29 +0000

Sales jobs are, much of the time, funny jobs. There’s just something about sales that brings the worst out of people—salespeople and customers alike. Salespeople don’t appreciate the crass indifference of their customers; they’re entitled, whiny people, and they don’t take kindly to the almost invariable disapproval of their customers. Customers, on the other hand, are, nine times out of ten, revolted by the false optimism and pushiness of their salespeople. Salespeople, to customers, are a predatory lot—a cancerous blight upon their wallets; the death of a pleasant disposition; the instigators of stress and impulse spending; the snake-tongued speakers of half-truths. Theirs is a constant, fruitless battle—salespeople and customers. And yet, their cohabitation continues.

Michael is a salesperson. He sells homes.

Michelle is a customer—a prospect. She wants to buy a home.

While these two people have just met, they can already sense that they’ll never like each other. Michelle can smell the starch that Michael used to press his shirt, which leads her to believe that his stiff-looking smile is every bit as contrived as it looks. Michael has already pegged Michelle for a window shopper, and he’s not planning on giving this presentation his proverbial “all”. They begin to speak. They’re standing in front of the house that Michael is showing. Michelle is his only prospect today.

“Well, that’s a lovely garden ,” comments Michael, turning to face Michelle. She’s not smiling.

“Are you complimenting your own home? Aren’t I supposed to be the one saying things like that?”

Michael clear his throat. “I suppose that you’re right. Would you care to step inside?”

“Of course,” Michelle replies, stepping ahead of Michael and into the foyer. She glances around the house, taking it in. The home furnishings are beautiful—rentals, no doubt, but beautiful. The kitchen is large and modern looking. She can see two stainless steel stoves, side by side, from where she’s standing. They catch the afternoon sun like shields of armor. She likes what she sees, but she knows that she can’t give Michael the upper hand.

“Those stoves are blinding. Did you have to install them there? They’re catching the afternoon sun. It’s really, really annoying.”

Michael curls his hand into a fist inside of his coat pocket. “Well, nothing’s set in stone. We could have the room remodeled before you…”

“Just forget it,” Michele chides, proud of herself for upsetting the flow of his presentation. She begins to walk down the home’s long hallway. She stops to open a closet door. Its contents, she discovers, will make for another fantastic sparring session with Michael.

“Now, what in the world is this?” she challenges, waving him towards the closet.

Michael inspects its contents: pet supplies – used dog toys, old food, a comb matted with hair, and the like. He curses himself for neglecting to clean this closet before he showed the home.

“I can get rid of that stuff. The previous owners were dog lovers.”

“Well, I imagine that did some pretty substantial damage to these hardwood floors. I’ll be taking a look around to make sure that you did a good job getting rid of all of the scuff marks. Just give me a few minutes, here.”

As Michele walks away, Michael breathes a sigh of relief. He spent thousands on the building supplies –avoided all of the cheap stuff. Surely, there’s no way that Michele will…

“Well, I found a scuff mark. You’ll need to get that fixed up…”

Once again, Michael curses himself. This time, the salesperson has lost. He has let his people down, and he won’t soon forgive himself for it.

The war continues to rage between salespeople and customers. Truly, no man can predict when it will end.

Brought to you by :

Fiction : http://blog.royaltyuniverse.com/category/fictional-stories/

Preparations are Key

Shopping Blogs — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 18:58:14 +0000

Have you ever been to the mall without making thorough preparations beforehand? Have you ever come out of the mall empty handed, upset because you allowed yourself to become lost in that sea of shoppers? Have you lost a purse, a wallet, a cell phone, or a loved one in your local mall? If you have answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, then it is about time that you wise up! Clearly, you have not done your studies!

While you may not think so at first, the mall is a terrifying, ever-changing place—a place that demands your utmost attention; your utmost speed. The mall is a place that you cannot conquer without adequate training! The mall, I dare say, is one of the most vicious places that you’re likely to find yourself! So why not put a little bit of thought into defending yourself? Why not do a little bit of extra homework and protect yourself from this, the sea of wanton bargain-hunting and vicious opportunism?

But enough of that. Surely, I’ve scared you into realizing that you’re not ready to face your local mall. At this point, you surely see the mall will consume your soul if you dare challenge it without doing an appropriate amount of training. Let us embark upon the path of identifying your main threats, reader. Let us prepare you for the obstacles that you’re bound to face, such that you stand a fair chance at overcoming them.

Our first threat, reader, may not seem like a threat at all. You’re likely to pass them by without giving them a second thought, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t rip your heart out and toss it into the mall fountain. Who, you must be wondering, am I talking about? Girls , reader; I’m talking about little, innocent children. Sure, they look innocent enough; sure, you can’t imagine them attacking you—but take it from me, reader, that innocence is just a lie spread by the government to pacify you. Turn your back on them for a moment—just a moment—and the next thing you know, your shopping trip has come to a bloody end.

Of course, we can’t forget about infants and toddlers ; we must not forget about them. Strapped into their strollers, they look harmless enough. But do not be fooled! Recent studies show that even the smallest of children can lift up to one hundred times their own weight! They could tear those plastic seats apart without breaking a sweat, and before you know it, they’ll be upon you. Of course, they’re also well known for their blood curdling, glass shattering, pupil dilating screams, which have been recorded to move at nearly ten times the speed of sound! Watch out for these terrible screams, reader; they might very well bring and end to your poor little ears!

Last but not least, reader, beware the men and women you encounter at the mall. The aforementioned beasts—their blood curdling screams; their proclivities for ripping out your very heart—are truly novices in the eyes of their adult counterparts. While the adults will not appear as brash as their younger allies—while they may not attack you physically—they may end up with your finances under their control. Unless you maneuver carefully, you may end up succumbing to their many “deals”, “bargains”, “sales”, and “credit card offers”. But now that you have read this article, dear reader, you can peg these offers for what they really are: a world—an eternity—of soul destruction and pain. If you value your soul or your integrity, reader, then you’d best avoid these tricky adults at all costs.

Brought to you by :

Discount Joe and Full Price

The Man Who Knew Far Too Little

Shopping Blogs — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:01:37 +0000

If you have ever set out to do a little bit of comparison shopping , then chances are that you’ve tried and failed to make use of all of the tools that are at your disposal. Perhaps you’ve tried online shopping, or perhaps you have stuck to regular shopping; either way, you’ve probably failed to find that “deal” that everybody is always talking about. Are you sick and tired of this sense of failure? Have you had it up to your chin with missing out on all of the special deals that line the pockets of your friends with money? If so, then you can certainly sympathize with our protagonist, a certain Roger Brimbram.

Roger Brimbram is a man who’s never–I mean NEVER–scored a deal on any product. Last year, when he went electronics shopping to find a new computer, he ended up buying a model that was discounted the very next day. All told, he lost about six-hundred dollars that day–that and his computer broke a mere three weeks later (in such a way that the manufacturer refused to repair or replace it; such was the extent of Roger’s bad luck). People also speculate that Roger once paid nearly eight-hundred dollars for a pair of shoes, and we’re not talking about designer shoes, here. Roger misread the price tag on the shoes and failed to notice that the cashier had rung him up for eight-hundred dollars. Truly, when it comes to finding deals, Roger is not the man with whom you want to speak.

Now, the reason that I’ve chosen to focus on Roger, here, is because he’s decided that he’s going to do a little bit of TV shopping today.

Understandably, I thought that you might find it interesting to follow Roger through the process of buying a TV. Even if you don’t find it funny, you’re bound to find it… Well, useful, I suppose.

Presently, Roger is standing in front of a large display of TVs. He has a rough idea of what he wants, but he’s not sure which brand he’s going to run with. He doesn’t want to buy anything that he doesn’t recognize–not after that terrible incident with the computer. He also knows that he doesn’t want to buy anything that isn’t “on sale”. Somewhere, he read that you should always buy the items that are “on sale” because that means that they’re “cheaper”–a concept that seemed valid enough to him. As he pours over his options, a store clerk comes to his side.

“Are you finding everything that you need, sir? Is there anything that I can help you with?” The clerk has a smile on his face, which suggests that he’s pegged Roger for the kind of misled shopper that he is. No doubt, this clerk makes a commission when he sells a TV.
“Well, I could actually use a bit of help,” Roger responds, trusting the clerk blindly.

“You just need someone to point you in the right direction,” the clerk chides, leading Roger down a row of escalating prices. Roger begins to sweat. They come to a stop in front of a 100″ flat-screen “mini-theatre”, the most expensive item in, well, the entire store. “This,” the clerk deliberately states, “Is the only thing that worth your money. This, my friend, is The Behemoth–the world’s largest flat screen TV. And you know what? If you buy it, I’ll go ahead and throw in something that you can’t pass up: the world’s biggest price tag!”

‘Finally!’ Roger thinks, ‘I’ve managed to score a deal. Ha! Just wait until people hear about this!’

Oh, Roger. When, I ask, will you learn?

The Ghost of the Derelict Mall

Shopping Blogs — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:37:01 +0000

Rachel’s life was, to say the very least, at the mercy of her shopping addiction . Truly, you could never run into Rachel without getting sucked into the world of shopping. On Mondays, she spent the majority of her time shoe shopping. Though she owned several thousand pairs of shoes, she never had any trouble when it came to finding yet another pair. On Wednesdays, she spent her entire afternoon electronics shopping, buying TVs and computers and sound systems that littered her home tires on the side of the highway. And on Fridays, Rachel spent all day comparison shopping –not because she needed to make a better purchase, but because she enjoyed laughing at other people when she knew, firsthand, that they were paying too much for what they were buying. Many, many people tried to approach Rachel about her shopping addiction, but she always cut them out of the loop the very moment that they brought it up. She was, in a sense, living in her own little world, far, far away from the rest of us. That is, until the day that she discovered a new mall–a mall that you wouldn’t be able to find on a map or on the internet; a mysterious, ghost mall on the very edge of town.

She happened upon this derelict mall when she got lost looking for a new shoe shopping outlet. She’d followed the directions carefully, but in the midst of responding to a shopping related text message, she missed her exit on the highway and continued down the road for several miles.

Realizing her mistake, she took the next available exit and tried to find her way back to where the shoe shopping outlet was. Oddly, though, she couldn’t find the on-ramp for the highway going in the opposite direction. It simply didn’t exist. While her shopping addiction led her to ponder whether or not she should simply drive down the wrong side of the highway (she wanted a deal on shoes that badly), she eventually decided that she’d try to make her way back to the outlet on side roads. This, she thought, would not present any significant problems.

Oh, how wrong poor Rachel was. The further Rachel drove down the twisting, ominous side road, the more unfamiliar her surroundings became. Dead trees and blown tires lined the road, and twice, she could have sworn that she saw a large, mysterious figure racing alongside her car. While most of us would have turned away and fled the scene, Rachel pressed forward, determined to land herself an amazing deal on a pair of shoes that she really, truly didn’t need.

After fifteen minutes of driving, she wound up in the parking lot of a large, abandoned mall. Strangely, the mall hadn’t deteriorated at all–at least, not from what she could tell standing in the parking lot. It’s walls were lined with the names of stores that she loved, and she swore that she could smell a bit of cinnamon in the air. Surely, she thought, she had simply struck gold–simply showed up at a mall before anyone else had.

She imagined all of the deals that lay before her: discounted shoes, electronics, food, and clothing. The temptation to explore this mall overtook her, and she charged in through the front door.

And that, dear reader, is the last that anyone ever saw of poor Rachel. No one has ever been able to find the mall where she disappeared; legend has it that it doesn’t actually exist. People say that Rachel must have been swept up by the very Spirit of Shopping, a god-like creature that regulates the deals that so permeate our malls and our shoe outlets. But then again, other people say that the whole thing is made up, and that she’s probably trapped under a mountain of shoes in her massive walk-in closet.

I suppose that we’ll never know.

Brought to you by :

Fictional Stories : http://blog.royaltyuniverse.com/category/fictional-stories/

The Worker Bee

Shopping Blogs — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 18:39:59 +0000

Are you tired of actually working when you’re at work? Do you feel like you were meant for some kind of higher purpose, but you’re just too bogged down with the daily grind to discover that purpose? Do you feel like you’re just working too much, and that you owe it to yourself to take a nice, long, extended break when you’re on the clock. Then boy, do I have the product for you! It’s the Worker Bee Autopilot Robot! Stop shopping around for a better solution right now! Once you see our Worker Bee, you won’t feel the need to do any more comparison shopping. Truly, this is the product for you!

Our worker bee can be customized to look just like you, more or less! Feel free to do some online shopping on our website! We have tens of faces that you can choose from, and we also have several body types! If you really do your homework, then you can create a Worker Bee robot that looks kind of like you do, meaning that you’re never going to have to work again!

Our Worker Bee robots can do everything that you do at your stinking, dead end job. They can make copies with their eye balls! They can type at a mind-boggling rate of thirteen words per minute (additional fees apply if you need your Worker Bee to type any faster, but we’re willing to do the work if it means that much to you!). They can usually send faxes, though we won’t be held accountable for where those faxes end up (our Worker Bees find numbers confusing, and they’re not too great with fax machines that were made after 1992; really, though, are you so great at faxing that your workplace is going to notice?). You can give your Worker Bee robot all of your privileged information and trust that at least 27% of it is going to end up in the right hands!

Our Worker Bee robots also make for good friends over the weekend! Have you been online shopping, looking for that special someone on social networking sites and dating sites? That shopping just isn’t going to cut it! Buy a Worker Bee robot and give yourself something to do during those long, hard weekends. Worker Bee robots can play fetch, just like a standard house dog. They can also do your taxes, though, once again, they’re not very good with numbers (but really, are you?). Worker Bee robots can drive your car, though we wouldn’t recommend that you ever let them.

Also, Worker Bee robots can do your grocery shopping and your electronics shopping. They are, after all, ROBOTS!

Don’t believe me? That’s fine! We have plenty of happy customers who are willing to expound their opinions about our wonderful product!

“I really didn’t think that a robot would be able to make me so happy, but when I got my Worker Bee, I knew that my life would never be the same.

People don’t even notice that I haven’t been to work in the last seventeen weeks! They’ve stopped sending me checks, but I’m pretty sure that my Worker Bee robot is just spending them on groceries and piles of electronics that I, well, don’t want and can’t afford. But really, I’d rather be broke than working, so my Worker Bee is doing just fine!”

“I hated the frequent meetings that I had to attend at my workplace, so I bought a Worker Bee robot to attend them for me. I lost my job the first time I tried to pull one over on my boss, but hey, I didn’t even want that job to begin with. Now, I’m finding fulfillment as a bagger at the local grocery store. I’d rather be doing that than balancing budgets and accepting real, adult responsibilities like I had to do at my other job. My parents told my Worker Bee to throw itself off of a cliff, but all I ever tell it is “thank you!”"

Don’t work another day! Stop comparison shopping and give us a call right now! You’ll be happy that you did!

Brought to you by :

Online Stories : http://blog.royaltyuniverse.com/category/fictional-stories/shopping-fictional-stories/

Stalk the People You Think You Might Love

Shopping Blogs — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 12:55:28 +0000

Are you sick and tired of your fear of rejection? Have you tried, time and time again, to meet that special someone, only to be turned down in a ridiculously public fashion? Have you tried shopping around for partners on online dating sites, only to find that those who’re willing to date you have failed to accurately represent themselves on said dating sites? If so, then take solace in the fact that you do not have to experience these problems alone. Indeed, these are but the problems of an ever-growing, ever-changing society, and they’re completely out of your control. At least, they were out of your control until now!

Introducing the new and improved Automatic Dater 3000! You can do all of the comparison shopping that you want, but you’re not going to find a better dating unit than this one! Make your fear of rejection a thing of the past with the Automatic Dater 3000!

So, what can our device do? What doesn’t our advice do?! That’s right! I don’t care how much shopping you’ve done; you’re not going to find anything that works better than our wonderful product!

The Automatic Dater 3000 comes in many forms! If you’re not interested in something as bulky as our robotic model, you can buy our Automatic Dater Mini! This device will clip onto your arm with a convenient sports band, and it looks just like a standard MP3 player! No one has to know that you are using an Automatic Dater 3000!

But let’s really get to the point, here, and describe precisely what our product does. By wearing the Automatic Dater 3000 as you go through your day, you’ll give yourself access to tons of information about the people around you! Our product gives you access to criminal records, rumors, and personal reviews from previous partners. When you’re thinking about testing your luck with someone else, you can look them up in your Automatic Dater and see what you’re getting yourself into! You’ll feel like you’ve known the person for years, and it only takes a couple of minutes to use!

But don’t take our word for it. Just talk to some of our happy customers!

“I was shopping at the mall when I came across the Automatic Dater 3000 kiosk. I was pretty skeptical at first, but the nice man at the kiosk let me try one out before I bought it. I took a five minute walk around the mall, and you wouldn’t believe how many things I learned about the people around me! I saw two murderers and a man whose never paid his taxes! I’d never want to date any of those people. I mean, I really can’t say enough good things about this product!”

“I thought that my husband was cheating on me, so I went out shopping and bought an Automatic Dater 3000. I figured that it’d be able to track my husbands activity, and surely enough, it did the trick just fine. All I had to do was input all of my husband’s information–social security number, credit info, driver’s license, heat shot, and some other stuff–and the Dater unit was able to track every step that he took. Turns out he wasn’t cheating on me, but he was spending way too much money on coffee at that place across the street from where he works, so I divorced him anyway. Thanks Automatic Dater 3000!”

Our Dater unit uses the power of the internet to help you invade the privacy of the people who you (think you might) love! Stop the comparison shopping and give us a call RIGHT NOW!

Brought to you by :

Fictional Stories : http://blog.royaltyuniverse.com/category/fictional-stories/

Mean Old Grandpa Larry

Shopping Blogs — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 13:39:16 +0000

It’s Christmas morning, and Grandpa Larry and his grandson are sitting in front of the Christmas tree in the living room. Grandpa Larry has grown bitter and tired in his later years, and he’s not the biggest fan of Christmas morning. There’s the whole family to deal with–those needy, good-for-nothings who stress out over each and every facet of the holiday. The turkey has to be prepared just right, and the ham has to be there in addition to the turkey, but not the honey baked ham, because no one likes the taste of honey mixed in with their meat–at least, according to Aunt Edna. There’s all the kids running around, screaming and shrieking like banshees when they see that they got, or did not get, a desired item for Christmas. And there are the pets, those terrible little things–all of them running around with the kids, making a mess and stinking and ruining the peace of the indoors. Really, Grandpa Larry is a man who just hates everything about Christmas.

This morning, though, his grandson, Peter, is not willing to leave him be. Peter is not willing to sit idly by watching his grandfather stew in his own anger. This morning, Peter is determined to make sure that even his grandfather enjoys Christmas, and at any cost. He tries to strike up a conversation.

“So Grandpa, did you enjoy your Christmas shopping this year? Did you find us a bunch of gifts?”

“Shopping? Bah! I can’t stand shopping. Shoe shopping, TV shopping, comparison shopping–you name it, I hate it! I can’t stand the mall, that terrible retched place; full of incorrigibles; full of people who worship savings like they’re God. I tell you what, you little brat: God didn’t mean for us to celebrate the life of his son by spending all of our money on stupid junk. God didn’t want us to spend the Christmas season shopping around for stupid junk and eating until our stomaches are about to burst. God wanted us to spend the whole day praying. And that’s what I’m trying to do right now, so why don’t you just leave me to it?”

Peter scratches his forehead, unable to comprehend the extent of his grandfather’s hatred. In Peter’s mind, Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year, and for a variety of reasons. Sure, he enjoys the presents and whatnot, but he also enjoys hanging out with his family–with his cousins, whom he only gets to see at Christmas, ever. He continues his line of questioning.

“Well, grandpa, do you at least enjoy getting to see the family. We’re all here, and we can all spend some time together, and this is the only time of year when that’s possible, you know? Do you enjoy that?”

“The family! Bah! You guys are too busy with your crazy computers and your online shopping and your eating to pay attention to an old fart like me. I feel like I’m all alone, all the time. And don’t take that to mean that I don’t want to be alone. But I feel like I’m alone!” He waves his hand through the air dismissively. “You’re just too young. You wouldn’t understand.”

Against all odds, Peter conjures up a smile. “But I bet you’re looking forward to getting your gifts. We’ve been shopping a lot, you know. We wanted to make sure that we found something extra special for you, grandpa. I think you’re really going to love it.”

“Oh yeah? Well, what’d you get me, then? What on Earth could you possibly have gotten me that I’m going to love so much, huh? How in the world did a little kid manage to get me, an old man, something that I’m going to enjoy?

Well, out with it!” Peter smiles. “I got you a massage chair and a pair of sound canceling headphones.”

Grandpa is silent for a moment. His face slowly twists into a smile. “You done well, kid. You done real well.”

Brough to you by :

Shopping and Shopping Blog

A Very Special Gift

Shopping Blogs — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 15:02:07 +0000

Have you been shopping around for the perfect for that special someone? Have you been frustrated by the countless hours that you’ve spent shopping and comparison shopping without any success? Have you tried you hand at online shopping and still failed to come up with anything that your special someone is going to like. Well, you don’t have to worry about that anymore! I’m here, today, to tell you that I’ve got the perfect gift for that special someone: Blue Tooth-Dye cereal! That’s right, the cereal that dyes your teeth blue, PERMANENTLY!

As you’ve been shopping around, you’ve no doubt been struck by the lack of originality that most products have to offer. I mean, let’s take a look at a few of the presents that you might have bought before you heard about our amazing Blue Tooth-Dye cereal.

A watch: Oh, great. You bought me a watch. Great. You’re so preoccupied with the amount of time that you’ve spent shopping around for me that you had to buy an instrument to measure the time that you’re wasting, and now you’re re-gifting it. Or maybe you’re trying to tell me that I’m always late to everything, and that you’d really prefer that I become a bit more punctual. Great, what a thoughtful gift. I was only late to your wedding and your baby-shower, and your graduation, and my own wedding, and I guess I was pretty late that time you needed me to bail you out of jail, and there have been plenty of other times… But really? You’re going to get me a watch for my birthday? Sheesh.

Scratcher Tickets: Oh, well isn’t that just great: you bought me scratcher tickets for my frickin’ birthday. You’ve got such a bad gambling problem that you gambled away my frickin’ birthday present, and you’re trying to pass it off as an actual present. You know what? You can keep away from me and my family. My kids don’t need to know you for what you’ve become: a hollow, ruined husk of a human being, so addicted to gambling and irresponsibility that you can’t even bring yourself to buy a proper birthday present for one of your closest friends. Keep the tickets, you addict.

Tickets to a Sports Game: Oh, well isn’t that just perfect: tickets to a sports game! I don’t even like hockey, you jerk. And besides, it’d be worse if I did like hockey. Imagine that: you take me to a sporting event for my birthday and my favorite team loses. Wow, what a great day! I got to see my favorite sports team lose, and I don’t even have anything to show for it. I mean, couldn’t you have spent a few extra bucks and bought a jersey or something? I mean, seriously. At least I can use that for something! Come on!

Socks: Oh, oh my … I can’t even find the words to adequately express how disappointed I am right now. I mean, if you gave me a couple of hours a thesaurus, I might be able to put something together that would help you understand just how badly you done messed this gift up.

Socks?! Are you kidding me?! I mean, who do you think you are? Do you think that you’re my mom? Do you think that you’re my grandmother? If you do, I’ve got news for you: you’re not! You could have given me a melted candy bar wrapped up in soggy newspaper and I would have found it more enjoyable than this lame gift! I mean, seriously. At least pretend that you care!

When you’re shopping around, you might find yourself haunted by a few of these scenarios. Don’t panic! Do as much comparison shopping as you’d like, but at the end of the day, be sure that you’re buying your special someone a present that is going to rock their world (and teeth!): cereal that turns human teeth blue, permanently!

Brought to you by :

Online Stores and Online Stores Blog

The Dumb Burglar

Shopping Blogs — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 19:38:07 +0000

A full-time burglar and several of his friends are gathered around a small, circular table in a smokey, dimly-lit pub. Slow, histrionic jazz fills the air, and drinks are flowing freely amongst this motley crew. It’s been a while since they’ve all gathered, and for obvious reasons. They are all full-time burglars, and they have reasoned–quite accurately–that they stand a better chance of avoiding Johnny Law if they don’t associate with each other very often. Tonight, though, marks a special occasion. Mark–one of these full time burglars–has decided to let his friends in on a little plan that he’s been cooking up. They’re to raid one of the local shopping malls for all of its treasures, and they’re to get away without leaving a trace of their crime. Mark begins to speak.

“I’m tell you guys, this plan is FOOLPROOF!” he exclaims, waving his hands wildly. “Ain’t nothing standing in our way this time, guys. When we get in there, we’re free to do all of the “shopping” we want! And Vinny, I know your wife has been pestering you for some shoe shopping money; you’ve been out of work for so long.”

“I know,” Vinny replies, taking a sip of his beer. “You’re right, Mark, but there’s just something about this plan that I don’t feel comfortable with, you know? I mean, breaking into a shopping mall … they’ve got enough security to keep the army out of there! What makes you think that we’re going to be able to make it in there without getting caught?”

“You guys want ALL of the details, do you?” questions Mark, a bit annoyed. “Well, fine. But don’t you guys go blabbering away to all of your friends, because I’ll call the whole thing off before you can say “prison”. But fair enough, here goes. You’re all going to play a specific role, and we’re going to have to orchestrate this thing perfectly to make sure that it actually works. Vinny, your part is pretty simple: you’re going to dig a tunnel from an apartment that I’ve rented ALL the way to beneath the food court of the mall. That’s only three miles, so you should be fine. I’ve got some gardening tools and a jackhammer and a few other things… you won’t run into any problems, I promise. Now, the rest of you guys: I’m going to need you guys to make your way to the food court and use this magnetometer to figure out where Vinny is. You’re then going to drive a giant metal pole in the floor of the food court so Vinny knows exactly where he’s going to need to start digging UP. Now, when you’re driving this giant metal pole through the floor, I need you to make sure that you looking like you’re shopping . That’s right: there are going to be shoppers everywhere, so I need you to make sure that you look like you’re shopping . That way, you know that you’re…”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Vinny interrupts, visibly upset. “What do you mean, ‘There are going to be shoppers everywhere’. What does that mean? When are we going to be doing this?!”

Mark looks at Vinny blankly. He knows that what he is about to say is not going to blow over well. “Well, we’re going to be doing this at about 10:30 am.”

“10:30 AM?!” the entire crew shouts in disbelief.

“Well, I mean, yeah,” admits Mark, embarrassed. “You know, there’s this really good sale going on, and I figured I’d get my shopping done without announcing my presence…”

“Then use the front door!” shouts Mark, jumping up from the table. “Shopping? To think that I even heard you out…”

Brought to you by :

General Store and General Store Blog

The Team

Shopping Blogs — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 11:59:39 +0000

In the middle of Chicago’s most prominent suburb, a mother stands in her living room. Her entire family is standing at attention, saluting her and donning all-black burglar’s outfits. She salute her, standing in profound silence. The mother paces in front of them, stopping at the far end of the living room and reversing her direction; repeating this with unwavering consistency. To the casual passerby, they’d look like they were up to no good–that much is certain. They’d look like an entire family of burglars in the middle of figuring out who they’re going to rip-off next.

The truth of the matter, though, is that this family is about to embark upon a serious mission: they are going to score all of the best deals that are at their local mall, and they are going to do it with scientific precision. This, of course, is their Saturday afternoon tradition, and it’s something that they always approach with utmost seriousness and conviction.

The mother begins to speak.

“Do we all understand why we’re gathered here today? Do we all understand why we’re training extra hard this week?”

“Yes!” her family answers in unison.

“Well, good. I’m glad that you guys are learning from your mistakes. But that doesn’t mean that I’m going to let you off the hook for last week’s screw-up at the electronics shopping outlet. Billy!” he shouts, pointing at her son. “Remind everyone of what went wrong at the electronics shopping outlet!”

“Yes ma’am. It was a standard mission, ma’am. Dad and I were to engage in T.V. shopping at O-900 hours. We were not to leave said electronics shopping outlet until we’d secured a deal on a brand new flat screen T.V. for this very residence. Dad spotted the deal of a lifetime within fifteen minutes. He put me on patrol duty, keeping a lookout for other shoppers … I mean, ‘potential threats’. Dad left to find you in the car to confirm the ‘target’, and I was left alone. At O-915 hours, I developed a sensation in my bladder that cued me into the fact that I had to urinate. I abandoned my post to find an appropriate place to sooth my bladder. And, well, the bathroom was so far away…” He blushes.

“Finish your synopsis!”

“The bathroom was so far away that I had to relieve myself behind the promotional DVD bin, and I got caught, and now we can’t go electronics shopping around there anymore.”

“Very well, Agent Son. You are relieved.” The mother begins pacing again, a bit faster this time. “What have we learned from this blunder?”

“Never abandon your post!” the family shouts in unison.

“Very good. Very good. I’m proud of you guys; you’re learning so quickly. Now, we’ll begin to focus on the matter at hand. We’re going to hit the mid-county mall, and we’re not–I repeat, we’re NOT–going to fail. There are going to be several operations going on in tandem today, so it’s important that we review before we begin. Agent son! Please deliver your action plan to the rest of the party.”

“Yes ma’am. I’m to enter the mall through the North-East entryway and B-line to CD outlet. I’m to save no fewer than twenty dollars purchasing Christmas presents, even though it’s only July.”

“Correct. Agent Husband! Please state your course of action!”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m to enter the building through the food court utility door, purchase a burrito, and bring it to Agent Son. I’m then to guard the entrance of the CD outlet.”

“Correct!” She smiles and stops pacing. She salutes. “Family, we’re ready for some comparison shopping!” And with that, they were off.

Brought to you by :

Shop and Shop Blog

The Blind Date

Shopping Blogs — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 12:10:43 +0000

Walter Seymour Philip Townsend is a man who cannot tolerate the company of women. It’s not that he doesn’t find women appealing, it’s that he can never figure out how to behave himself in their company. You might blame this affliction on Walter’s method of practice: watching romantic comedies by himself, in the dark, in his one bedroom apartment. This, he thinks, is the only way for a man like himself to study the opposite sex without placing himself in the course of harm. But recently, Walter has grown tired of living his life in the shadows. He’s grown tired of being the slave of his own phobias–his own, self-imposed social restraints. Recently, Walter decided that he was going to go on an actual date.

It just so happens that his date is taking place right now, in a sense. Shall we take a look?

There he is, right over there. He’s at an italian restaurant–reasonable prices, high popularity. He’s showed up before his date–significantly before his date–and he’s eating free bread like there’s no tomorrow. He does this when he’s afraid, the whole over-eating thing. He’s trying to think of what he’s going to say when she gets here. He’s having a rather difficult time–about as difficult as you’d expect. In the romantic comedies that he’s watched, the guy never has a problem coming up with something to say. He always just stands there, charming and befuddled as hell, digging himself deeper and deeper into a hole of awkwardness and near-intentional despair; and then, right at the very end of the movie, through a series of comically romantic blunders, the guy ends up with the girl, sharing his umbrella or his sandwich or something like that. ‘Should I order a sandwich? Did I remember my umbrella?’ Walter ponders, effectively making himself a bit more nervous.

Oh, and here she comes! Right through the front door. Arthur steals a glance at her; she’s much more beautiful than he expected–not at all like her profile on the online dating site.

‘Oh, jeez,’ he thinks, tugging at the tablecloth. ‘What do women like to talk about? Shopping? Yes! Shopping! I’ll talk about shopping; that’ll do the trick! But what kind of shopping? Should I talk about shoe shopping? Should I talk about electronics shopping? What is she into?’ He pours over the contents of his mind, hoping that he’ll remember something from her profile. But alas, he does not. He knows nothing about this poor woman–nothing beyond her fate on this, the most unfortunate dating night of her life. He begins to sweat. She takes a seat at the table.

“Walter?”

He’s still tugging at the tablecloth. “Yes. I’m Walter. And just right off the bat, I need you to know that I love shopping. I just can’t get enough of all that good shopping around here! Do you like shoe shopping? I love shoe shopping?”

She looks somewhat alarmed. Clearly, he’s coming on a bit too strong; a bit too enthusiastic. “Well, yes, I suppose that I do enjoy shoe shopping … Is something the matter, Walter?”

“No!” he shouts, losing control of the volume of his voice. “I AM PERFECTLY FINE. SHALL WE ORDER DINNER?” Yet another blunder.

According to the romantic comedies that he’s studied, you’re never supposed to order your food until you’ve had time to talk for ten or twenty minutes. He attempts to correct himself. “ACTUALLY, WE SHOULD GET A ROUND OF DRINKS.”

“That sounds fine, Walter. Did you have any plans for later tonight? I thought that we might rent some kind of romantic comedy or something…”
On that note, Walter’s nervousness dissolved entirely. He knew, beyond a reasonable doubt, now, that he’d happened upon the woman of his dreams.

“That sounds amazing,” he responds, confidently grabbing the drinks menu. “That sounds amazing, truly.”

Brought to you by :

Shopping Online and Shopping Online Blog

The Shopping Eye Dog

Shopping Blogs — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:55:34 +0000

Are you tired of spending too much money? Are you tired of shopping without aim or purpose? Are you tired of feeling like all of your friends are getting the good deals before you can find them? If so, then you might find that it’s time to make a change. You might find, in fact, that you need a shopping eye dog. Who says that helper dogs are only for the visually impaired? We’ve trained OUR dogs to sniff out the good deals so that you don’t have to miss out on them for one day longer!

You could spend hundreds of hours on the internet, online shopping until you feel like you’re ready to die. You could spend hundreds of hours trolling your local discount outlets, hoping against hope that you’re finally going to land the sort of deal that your friends are always talking about. Heck, you could even hire a couple of bums off of the street to hang out in all of your favorite stores and let you know when the deals are hitting, but then you’d have to buy all of them cell phones and food and shelter and … well, clearly you can see that that’s not going to work out long term.

Trust us! Our shopping eye dog works perfectly! At our dog factory, we breed these dogs to sniff out the deals from the very day that they’re born. Local “deal” farms ship us their very best deals, and our dogs learn their scent from the moment they exit the womb. If you don’t believe us, just ask one of our many happy customers!

“The first time that I let my shopping eye dog out of the car, it bolted. It was out of sight in ten seconds. I thought that I’d never see him again. My family looked for him for hours, in the rain, but we couldn’t find him. We were pretty upset. But when we finally got home, there he was–our shopping eye dog! He had a pile of stuff at his paws–crazy, unbelievable deals! He saved us nearly $17. Definitely worth those couple of hours we spent in the rain!”

Still don’t believe us? Ask another one of our happy customers!

“My shopping eye dog has really changed my life. I guess you could say that I didn’t have a life before I got my shopping eye dog. I just sat around in my apartment all day long, scouring the internet for deals. I lost my job, my wife, my kids, my car, and my self respect looking for deals. When I got my shopping eye dog, my life really turned around. Now, I have a new family, a new job, a used car, and some self respect. If I didn’t buy my shopping eye dog, I would have ended up on streets in no time. Thanks, shopping eye dog!”

Our shopping eye dogs don’t need to be fed, petted, or cared for in any way. It’s almost like you don’t even have a dog! All you have to do is strap five dollars in his collar when he leaves the house; he’ll figure out how to care for himself! Our trainers are just that good.

Allergic to dogs? NO PROBLEM! Just buy one of our feline financiers! That’s right, we can train our dogs to stay at least fifty feet away from your house. Instead of delivering your deals themselves, they’ll send in a feline financier! Sure, it’ll run you a few extra bucks, but it’s well worth it. You’ll have a shopping eye dog and a feline financier–a veritable deal-finding team!

Well, heck. Call in right now, and we’ll ship the feline financier for free!

CALL NOW!

Brought to you by :

Fictions : http://blog.royaltyuniverse.com/category/fictional-stories/shopping-fictional-stories/

Kinds of People

Shopping Blogs — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:20:47 +0000

There are two kinds of people in this world: the kind of people who make decisions (very much to their own benefit), and the kind of people whose lives are affected by said decisions. Today, we’ll focus on the former category of people–those who, in a tall, expensive building, wearing remarkably expensive suits and watches, make decisions that drastically affect our world. These people, you might validly argue, live lives that are far removed from our own; that, though, does not make their influence any less profound.

For the sake of voyeurism, let’s allow ourselves to peak in on the lives of these executives–to see precisely what they’re doing to affect our lives now. If you have a light stomach, then you might want to stop reading this story now!

Well, from the looks of that white board over there, the topic of today’s discussion is “Shopping on the Moon”; a fairly curious title. What, I wonder, could they mean by “Shopping on the Moon”? I suppose that we’ll find out soon, because the man with a long, bushy mustache is beginning to speak.

“You know, I’m just not so sure about putting a shopping mall on the … moon,” he stammers. He’s sweating visibly; he holds much of the decision making power, no doubt. “I mean, how in the world are people going to get up to the moon to do their shopping? It just … doesn’t seem like something that’s going to catch on.”

“Catch on?!” chastises the man with the top hot, reddening in the face. “People love the frickin’ moon! What happened to you when you were a kid to make you hate the moon so much?”

The man with the long mustache looks taken aback. He tugs on the collar of his suit, his posture rigid. “You moron! I’m not saying that people don’t love the moon! Why in the world would I say that?!”

“Well, you’re not a fan of apple pie.”

“What in the world does apple pie have to do with the moon?!”

“I’m just saying… Your taste is a bit off, it wouldn’t be out of the question for a man like you to hate the moon.”
“Why, I never…”

“Enough!” shouts the third man. Do recall, reader, that he hasn’t spoken a word until just now. “Stop your blubbering and let the man finish his point!”

“Thank you,” chimes the mustached speaker, clearly flattered. He tugs on his suit once more. “What you’re forgetting, gentlemen, is that the common man barely has enough money for shoe shopping and TV shopping as it is. We can’t possibly expect them to pay for transit to the moon when they’re already struggling right here on earth.”

“Shopping is shopping,” chides the second speaker. “Wherever shopping is, you’ll find people.”

“That,” corrects the first speaker, “is not true.”

“Well, if you’re such an expert, then why don’t you just…”

“Enough!” shouts the third speaker, visibly angry this time. “Are you two just too stupid to see the solution to this problem? Are you really that dumb?”

The mustached speaker and his angry counterpart stare at each other blankly. “Yes,” they state in unison.

“Fine, then. Listen to what I have to say, and don’t interrupt. It’ll all make sense by the end.” He lights a cigarette and leans back in his chair.

“You’re both right, in a sense. First of all, people cannot afford to make it to the moon to do their shopping. That much is right. But you err, you mustached idiot, in thinking that people will not buy items that are on the moon.”

“Moon rocks?” questions, the first man.

“NO! You idiot! We’ll ship our regular products to the moon and store them there. Then, we can sell them as moon products and ship them back to Earth. It’ll cost us billions, but it’ll make us…”

“Trillions,” the three of them state in unison.

“It’s genius,” the mustached speaker utters, and there they go, inventing Moon shopping.

Brought to you by :

Fictional Shopping Stories : http://blog.royaltyuniverse.com/category/fictional-stories/

The Lazy Mans Victory

Shopping Blogs — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 15:11:35 +0000

Are you sick and tired of walking around on your own two feet? Are you too poor to buy one of those fancy walking machines? Are you too lazy to make it out to the store to buy one of those fancy walking machines? Well, then I have something that you’re going to want to hear about: the Automatic Speed Lightning Shopping Cart Supreme. That’s right, folks–we’re talking about a shopping cart with a gas engine that moves so YOU don’t have to! We’re all about making life easy for you; making sure that you don’t have to do the sorts of things that made humans last as long as we did in the first place!

Our gas-powered shopping cart can get you from point A to point B with blinding, “life flashing before your eyes” speed! That’s right: we’ve equipped our gas-powered shopping cart with a 1000cc motorcycle engine! You can make it up to sixty miles per hour in under three seconds! You heard me right! You can take this baby on the highway! Just be sure that you’re wearing a helmet… If you hit a car, or even a tiny little bump in the road, you’re done for.

Our Automatic Speed Lightning Shopping Cart Supreme is outfitted with space age technology to guarantee a smooth ride! Space age sand bands keep your shopping card from doing a flip when you floor it! Space age soda bottles line the bumpers of the cart, guaranteeing that if you hit something, you’re not GUARANTEED to die! Space age industrial trash bags make sure that you have a way to attempt to stop! You’re going to need about three thousand feet, but you’ll stop eventually!

And let’s not forget, people, that we’re talking about a shopping cart, here. That’s right. This cart is made to help you simplify your shopping experiences.

Are you going TV shopping? No problem! Our Automatic Speed Lightning Shopping Cart Supreme is perfect for tearing butt around the electronics shopping outlets that are in your area! And thanks to our steel reinforcement technology, it can actually carry up to one thousand pounds of product! That’s right! You can carry twenty or thirty TVs at once! That’s impressive, is it not?

Are you going shoe shopping? That’s no problem, either! Our Automatic Speed Lightning Shopping Cart Supreme can get you into a new pair of shoes faster than you ever thought possible. I mean, we’ll get you to the store at sixty miles per hour, and then we’ll get you THROUGH the store at sixty miles per hour. Really and truly, you are never going to come across a better shopping cart than ours!

Now, I’m required by law to say a few things about our shopping cart, so bear with me for a second.

WARNING:

The Automatic Speed Lightning Shopping Cart Supreme is NOT recommended for actual use. The statements made by this advertisement have NOT been evaluated by the FDA, FCC, or DMV.

This is a class F motor vehicle. Using this shopping cart on the highway amounts to reckless endangerment, and you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Should you be caught operating this vehicle indoors, you’ll suffer heavy fines and a possible prison sentence. This shopping cart is HIGHLY EXPLOSIVE. It lets off an alarming amount of carbon monoxide, and should not, under ANY circumstances, be operated indoors. If you begin to feel lightheaded while you’re operating this vehicle, park it and take a nice, long walk through a very clean park. Well, there you have it, folks! Buy our shopping cart and say goodbye to the days of slow, tedious walking!

Robots And Shopping A Match Made in Heaven

Shopping Blogs — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:17:40 +0000

Are you tired of modern day shopping? Are you worried that you’re doing permanent damage to your wrists by carrying heavy shopping bags to the car each and every day? Are you nervous that you’re just not spending enough of your money on frivolous things that you don’t need? Well, then I have good news for you! All of these worries can be a thing of the past when buy the Automatic Mega-Shop-O-Tron 5000–2010′s solution to the modern shopping dilemma. That’s right, folks: we’re talking about an actual robot that can do your shopping for you!
“But I thought that robots lived on Mars…”

FALSE! Plenty of robots lead happy lives right here on Earth!

“But won’t robots turn on us eventually? Won’t they kill us or buy us pants that don’t fit to make us feel bad?”

NO! Robots don’t think for themselves. We think for robots because we build them and program their behavior ourselves, just like celebrities!

Think about it. Haven’t you felt like you’ve been missing out on something? When you’re out there in that broad, threatening world, shopping all by your lonesome, don’t you feel like things could be better? Let robots fill the void in your soul!

Our Automatic Mega-Shop-O-Tron 5000 can be customized to fit your shopping needs.

TV shopping ? Perfect! Our robots don’t have eyes, but they know how to spot a good deal when they see one! You can send your robot out to all of the popular electronics shopping outlets and just wait for the perfect TV to be carried back to your front door. Our robots can carry up to seven hundred pounds of products, so they’ll be able to handle a tiny little TV without breaking a sweat. Robots never sweat!

Shoe shopping ? No problem! Our robots can be customized to walk around on robotic feet that match yours perfectly in size! You can send them out to all of your favorite shoe stores and have them try on all of the shoes that they encounter. They’ll have the same feet as you, so you’ll never have to worry about having them bring home shoes that just don’t fit! They’ve been scientifically tested to carry up to seven hundred pounds of shoes! That’s a lot of shoes!

Comparison shopping ? Oh, please! Our robots have calculators for brains, so they can crunch all the numbers that would normally bog down you and your fickle human brain! Our robots are connected to the world wide web, so they can guarantee that you never pay a penny more than you have to. Our robots can also connect with your savings account and your checking account, spending your money recklessly and indiscriminately.

Really and truly, our robots are built for your convenience. They’re powered by a combination of gasoline and butane, so you’ll never have to worry about buying those pesky robot power-cells! Just be sure that you don’t keep your robots indoors! They’re a fire hazard.

For your convenience, our robots come in a variety of colors! Pink, red, blue, brown, and classic metal–you pick the robot that matches your style!

Additional options include robot wigs, robot pants, robot gloves, robot hair dryers, robot sunglasses, and much, much more.
Don’t settle for another day of problematic 2009 shopping. Buy your Automatic Mega-Shop-O-Tron 5000 and usher in the convenience of 2010!

The Automatic Mega-Shop-O-Tron 5000 Robot is available in most countries. Feel free to use any credit card, debit card, ATM card, or Money Order to ORDER NOW! Order while supplies last! 2010 is upon us, and the robots are gassed up and ready to ship out!

CALL NOW!

The Execs

Shopping Blogs — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:36:42 +0000

Sitting around a long table in a very tall room inside of a very, very tall skyscraper are six men wearing suits. The cheapest suit in the room, you should know, costs $3,500–and that’s before you buy the custom fitting. Four of these six men are wearing extremely expensive watches, and two of them are wearing less expensive watches which match the color schemes of their suits. Whereas you and I spend the majority of our days working with our hands and feet–or, at the very least, our woefully tired fingers and eyes–these men spend their days ringing their brains of good ideas. At least, that’s what they think they’re doing.

These men are television executives, and they’re out to get you.

You see, we, the audience of their channel, actually afford them their ostentatious, wine-soaked, caviar freckled lives. If it were not for us, they wouldn’t be sitting around such a large table, in such a large room, in such a tall tower, wearing their expensive and less expensive watches and their expensive suits. You see, their lives lives are not in part, but entirely made possible through our purchasing power; through our subtle, yet profound manipulation. In a word, through our shopping .

Today, these men have gathered to figure out precisely how they are going to continue to prosper in this, the greatest year of all time. Though they’ve been filling their brains with the optimistic articles of over-enthusiastic economists, all but one of them can’t shake the feeling that they’re going to have to do something special–something cunning–this year. Today–yes, today–they have gathered to figure out precisely how you and I are going to be tricked into buying things in the great year of 2010.

Shall we listen in on their conversation?

The portly one is beginning to speak. He’s pointing a chubby finger at a graph that signifies a negative (and remarkably linear) correlation between a show’s popularity and the success rate of its advertising. He looks worried; beads of sweat are beginning to collect on his brow.

“This, gentlemen, doesn’t make any sense! If our popular shows can’t push product, then what in the world can? Why aren’t people shopping?”

“Well,” says the man to his right, a brash young executive, mid-thirties but gray-haired, “Maybe that’s the problem right there! Shows are getting too good! Back in the day, we aired junk in the mornings, drivel in the afternoons, and compost at night, and our guys were pushing product like magic! Maybe we need to dumb things down a bit; pacify the masses, you know?”

The man sitting across from him–an angry-looking man, easily in his eighties–pounds his fist against the table. “We need a mascot,” he exclaims. “We used to push product because we had a damn Giraffe screaming at people to buy peanut butter! I’m telling you, giraffes and shopping go hand in hand!”

“Well, who are the target markets?” bellows another man from the far end of the table. “Who are we trying to capture? What are the ads? Shoe shopping? TV shopping? What are we dealing with, here?”

“All of it; all of it!” screams the portly man, working himself up. “All of our markets are falling through.” He pauses. “And besides, a mascot would never work.” He turns to his side and flicks on the widescreen TV that hangs on the wall. The room explodes with the cartoonish voice of a giant zebra. It’s pushing shoes–the nation’s most popular kind of shoes; the kind that everyone wants but no one can get their hands on. The portly man turns slowly to face the older man. “Do you still have the costume?”

“Of course. It’s in my garage.”

The Book That Will Change Your Life

Shopping Blogs — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 14:19:59 +0000

Are you new to the world of shopping , reader? Rather, are you new to the world of strategic shopping? When you go comparison shopping or TV shopping, do you feel like you lack a certain edge, a certain ability to beat out the competition of your fellow shoppers? When you go electronics shopping, do you feel like you’re behind the curve, like you can never land the good deals that everyone is always talking about? If so, then you need to buy my book, 1001 Ways to Shop Until THEY Drop! If shopping is your addiction, then consider me your drug dealer! My proven techniques are going to have you fighting your way to the top of the shopping food chain in hardly any time at all!

Don’t believe me? Well, here are a few excerpts from my book. Once you’re done with these, I challenge you to tell me that you haven’t learned a thing or two!

“Technique #127: Aggressive Parking. If you’ve ever been to a crowded mall, chances are that you’ve left feeling frustrated and defeated. Maybe you just wanted to go shoe shopping for an afternoon; maybe you wanted to pick up a couple of presents for your friends–but chances are that you failed to accomplish these simple tasks. My studies show that nearly 80% of all mall failures are born from the very first thing that you encounter at the mall: the parking lot. I know, right?! Well, fear not, reader, because I’ve got a couple of quick fixes that’ll have you parking like a champ in hardly any time at all. First off, you’re going to have to be sure that you own a small, two-seater sports car. When you’re test driving your options, be sure that you’re limiting your choices to the cars that can make it up to sixty miles per hour in under seven seconds. Once you’ve purchased your car, you’re going to want to get really, really comfortable with your emergency brake–so comfortable with it that you can pull off a ninety-degree turn at sixty miles per hour in less than ten feet. Once you’ve mastered this, you’re ready to tackle the mall parking lot. When you’re squaring off against that jerk at the mall over the last remaining parking space, execute this technique and you’re guaranteed to win. And the best part is if they hit you, the insurance claim will pay for all of the shopping that you’re going to do that day. IT’S JUST THAT EASY!”

“Technique #49: The Red Herring. When you know that you’re going to be shopping competitively, you’re going to want to be sure that you’re carrying plenty of counterfeit money. Before you enter the store that you’re targeting, toss all of your counterfeit money on the ground and make a big fuss about it. Shout something like, “OH MY GOD, LOOK AT ALL OF THIS FREE MONEY!” Before you know it, your target store is going to clear out, and you’re free to go in there and buy everything that you want. The best part is that you can call the cops on all of those suckers when they try to spend your counterfeit money! Now that’s what I call winning!”

These are but a couple of my amazing, life-changing shopping techniques , and believe me, they only get better from here! All it takes for you to turn your shopping world upside down is one tiny little purchase! You can get my book for six easy payments of $99.99.
Don’t wait! Supplies are limited, and these things are selling like hot cakes at diet camp!

An Old Feud

Shopping Blogs — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 15:42:21 +0000

To my dearest friend Arthur:

I know, Arthur, that your life has not panned out as you hoped that it would. I know that, looking back, you’re probably very unhappy with how things have turned out. No doubt, you’re upset that you’ve lost your drive; upset that you’ve lost the power to control the circumstances of your own life with unflinching power and steadfast conviction. This, of course, has led me to believe that you deserve a nice, long letter–something to shake those bad thoughts out of your mind and restore you to your previous excellence. Seeing as though you’ve chased away most of your friends, I suppose that I’ll have to be the one to deliver said letter. And if that’s the case, then I’m going to do it on my own terms.

I’m going to give you the bad before I give you the good. Given our past, this strikes me as rather appropriate. So, here goes nothing.

The Bad:

You’re going bald, Arthur. Very, very bald. So bald that you can’t hide it anymore. It’s as if even your own hair can’t put up with you anymore. I was electronics shopping the other day– TV shopping for my son–and I saw you at the other end of the store. I’m not sure if you saw me. I’ll tell you what, though: that enormous hat that you were wearing couldn’t cover up the cold, ugly, one might say “bald” truth. Keep shopping for hats, Arthur, because the one that you have isn’t really doing the trick.
You’ve been terrible to me in the past. Remember all of the “harmless” pranks that you used pull? Remember how just about all of them were directed at me? Do you remember the time that you plugged the muffler to my car with bananas and I couldn’t get it started for hours? Do you remember the time that you called in sick for me at work, and how I came into work because I didn’t know of what you’d done, and how I almost got fired because they thought that I’d been lying to them? Do you remember the time that you kidnapped my wife’s dog, shaved it, and drew terrible, unspeakable things all over its body with a sharpie? Perhaps you remember the time that you ran your car through the front of my house and then fled the scene? Or perhaps you remember the time that you convinced me to go on a vacation with you, which you used as a way to fake my death and “get your wife some life insurance money!”
You are so, so bald, Arthur; so very bald.
You have halitosis.

The Good:

You have halitosis, and you always have. I never had to worry about competing with you for women, because you’d scare them off once you were within four or five feet of them. And if you didn’t talk as a means of concealing your halitosis, girls simply thought you were weird. It was, at the end of the day, amazing.
You have not managed to avoid my own (strictly retaliatory) pranks, Arthur. Do you remember the time when you came home and your house was full of dead fish? Do you remember the time when I nailed all of your furniture to the ceiling of your house and made you think that you were hallucinating? Or do you remember the time that I broke into your basement every night for six weeks, snuck up to your attic, and made shrieking sounds and convinced you that your house might be haunted? Yeah, I bet you do.

Ours is such a strange friendship, Arthur.

I look forward to seeing you at the company picnic.

Cheers,
-Melvin

Brought to you by :

Shopping : http://www.royaltyuniverse.com/Information_Center.html

A Hatred of Shopping

Shopping Blogs — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:56:41 +0000

If there’s one thing that Peter hates, it’s shopping . To be more specific, Peter hates electronics shopping with a passion that most people would find alarming. You see, Peter was a rather nerdy child, to put it lightly, and he was often teased for his enthusiasm when it came to the world of technology and computing. In an effort to stave off as much teasing as he could, Peter decided that he would swear off computers entirely. This, you should know, was nearly fifteen years ago, now. To say the very least, Peter has been enormously successful in his attempt to rid his life of modern computing technology. And until recently, Peter was very proud of this success. He hadn’t been made fun of in years, and he hadn’t betrayed his nerdier teenage interests in any conversations with his friends. Now, though, Peter is faced with a rather severe problem: he must, if he wishes to keep his job, purchase a modern computer and learn how to use it before the month is over.

Now, most people would celebrate such an occasion; Peter, though, is most certainly not like most people. His fear of being teased is so profound that, presently, he can hardly bear to lift himself out of the car and begin his electronics shopping quest. He can see it now: the moment he buys his new computer, his former self is going to grab hold of the steering wheel of his life and send him veering down a lonely, destructive path of nerdiness and despair. This, he concludes, is something that he must prevent.

Next to the electronics store lies a friendly little sporting goods store. This store catches Peter’s attention. This store, he thinks, just might have something that can solve his problem.

Heading into the sporting goods store, he feels an air of jockiness wash over him; he can practically taste it in his mouth. This, you might correctly guess, makes him feel nervous, but still, he continues into its depths. Passing the initial line of cash registers, Peter is greeted by an aggressively enthusiastic store clerk.

“Hello there!” she shouts, spitting a little. “Welcome to Sport World USA ! How can I be of service!?”

Her volume attracts the gazes of several people standing nearby, and they scowl at Peter disapprovingly. “Well,” Peter squeaks, “I was… erm … looking for something that might help me … you know … bulk up? Yes, that’s it: bulk up.” He swallows hard, but his awkwardness is something that doesn’t phase the store clerk.

“Bulk up?! That’s great! I love it when people like you decide to get in shape!”

Peter isn’t sure what she means by this, but he’s willing to hear her out.

“If you’ll just follow me to the back of the store, here, I’d be happy to show you the work out equipment that we carry! It’s all super fun, and we have really great payment plans! Not to mention that we’re always willing to install it for free, and …”

She continues to talk, but she’s far from Peter’s mind. As they approach the work out section, Peter catches a glimpse of the equipment, all of it metallic and shining under the store’s lights. He can’t help but think of the robots that he and his father used to put together, how they’d shine under the lights in their garage . He looks at a treadmill, and he swears that it looks precisely like a face–like a nice, robotic face, smiling and smiling away, just happy to be a robot. And he looks back at the store clerk and notices that she’s wearing a dog tag; that, too, glistens in all its metallic glory. Peter can hear the sound of a twig snapping in the back of his mind.

“You know what?” he interrupts, jarring the store clerk. The nerd in his mind grabs the steering wheel and floors it. “You know what? I think that I have to do some electronics shopping next door.” And you’d better believe that those were the most honest words, and the most satisfying words, that Peter had spoken in fifteen years.

Brought toyou by :

Royalty Universe Comparison Shopping : http://www.royaltyuniverse.com/

An Episode of Television Sales

Shopping Blogs — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:22:43 +0000

Welcome, one and all, to Omega Thrift-O-Vision 2010, the best shopping show that your dumb eyes are ever going to find. Once again, I’m your host, Brad Johnson, and I’m here to make sure that beautiful deals and beautiful products have a way to make it into your ugly life. Based on our numbers, a lot of you have been doing a bit too much comparison shopping and online shopping recently. The phones, you might say, have not been ringing off of their hooks in the last couple of weeks. But you know what, audience? We here at Omega Thrift-O-Vision 2010 do not hold a grudge against you. We know that you love your online shopping and your regular shopping, and we know that if you’re not buying things from us, then we just haven’t been doing a good enough job. That’s why we’ve been working our researchers and scientists as hard as we can over the last couple of weeks to bring you a product that you simply can’t pass up–a product that is going to rock the very foundation of your wallet and topple the house that is your brain-bag. If you’ve got a seat-belt in your easy chair, I suggest that you strap yourself in, because things are about to get a little wild.

And now, without further ado, I introduce you to the product that is going to change your life forever: the Omega Thrift-O-Vision 2010 Kitchen Mattress Pad. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a mattress pad that you can apply–permanently!–to your kitchen floor. I’m sure that some of you are too excited to hear me clearly, so I’ll repeat myself: this is a mattress pad that you can permanently attach to the floor of your very own kitchen. Now, I’m not a bragging man, but I have to tell you, folks, that I came up with this idea myself. I brought a sketch of this contraption to our scientists, and you know what they told me? They told me that it simply couldn’t be done–that man was simply incapable of crafting such a beautiful thing with his wretched, clumsy little hands. But it was me, audience, who told those pesky scientists with their beakers and glasses to get back to work–to leave the thinking to a thinking man like myself. Well, 25,000 man-hours later, this is where we find ourselves: living in a world with a mattress that you can attach to the floor of your very own kitchen.

How in the world did I come up with such a great idea? That’s a great question. You might say that it came to me in a dream, and you might also say that I invented it out of necessity. You see, my career in television sales has granted me great power, and with great power comes the great responsibility to party as hard as you humanly can, each and every night of the week. And I know what you’re thinking, but that’s not the case at all. I was cooking all the time! When you’re a man of my stature, you have to be sure that you’re not boring your guests with average, unsurprising parties. You have to be sure that YOUR baked goods are the best baked goods that they’re ever going to taste, which means that you’re going to have to spend a lot of time sleeping in your kitchen, waiting for things to get done.

Now, if you’re ready to install a mattress in your kitchen–and who isn’t?!–then you’re going to want to give me a call. Save the online shopping and the comparison shopping and the TV shopping for another day! You’re shopping with me today!

Brought to you by :

Royalty Universe Shopping Blog : http://blog.royaltyuniverse.com/

The Best Shopping Channel in the Universe

Shopping Blogs — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:20:56 +0000

Welcome, welcome, one and all, to the best shopping channel in the entire universe, depending upon your religious beliefs. As always, I’m Brad Johnson, here to bring you the best deals that the universe has ever seen! We’ve done our comparison shopping, we’ve done our regular shopping, we’ve done our TV shopping and our online shopping, and we’re confident that not even ALIENS with crazy technology are going to be able to beat our prices! And even if they could, you’d want to be sure that you’re doing your shopping right here on Omega Thrift-O-Vision to support your home planet.

But I’ve gone on for long enough! It’s time to get to the wonderful products and the wonderful deals, am I right? Am I right?! Well all right!

You know, audience, I have to confess that I thought this next product was just too good to be true when I heard about it for the first time.

When you’ve worked in television sales for as long as I have, you really start to feel like you’ve already seen everything that humanity has to offer. I’ve seen toasters that work in the shower; I’ve seen leashes for gerbils that come with holographic gerbils; I’ve seen dog pens that trick your dog into thinking that you’re petting them and feeding them and all of the things that you’d normally do when you’re home. Really, I just thought that I’d seen it all. So take it from me, audience, that this next product is really, truly, unbelievably… amazing.

So without further ado, here she is: the Omega Thrift-O-Vision 2010 Toenail Clipper Exercise Bike!

Now, I know what you may be thinking: “Brad, how in the world have scientists managed to combine an exercise bicycle with a toenail clipper?

Brad, are you listening to me?! I’m asking you, how in the world can that be done?!” Well, I have to admit, I’m no inventor, and according to the University of Tabernackee, I’m no scientist either! But what I can tell you, audience, is that this toenail-clipping exercise bike really, truly works! Here’s the run down:

The pedals of the bike are surrounded by a semi-circular toenail file that snags your toenails with each and every pump! The faster you go on your bike, the more you’re going to end up filing your nails. It’s pure, unadulterated genius, people! Who ever thought that you could lose weight–substantial weight!–by filing your toenails? I know that some of our products haven’t worked out in the past; I know that some of you are still mad about our Omega Thrift-O-Vision Sniffing Chocolate–but take it from me, this product really, truly works! I’ve been using it for five weeks now and my feet have never looked better. I’m even getting compliments from complete strangers, and this time, I’m not even asking for them!

But maybe you don’t want to take my word for it. You guys, with your constant online shopping and your comparison shopping–you’ve grown too skeptical to take one man’s word for anything. I invite you, then, to listen to some of the testimonials that we have lined up. Joe Schmaker, you’re on line television, baby! Tell us why you love your new Toenail Clipper Exercise Bike!

“Oh, wow. Thanks for having me on the show, Brad. Well, I don’t know about you, but I had a serious toenail problem. I was so busy working out that I never even had time to eat, much less clip my toenails. They were getting so long that I could hardly do my mid-afternoon ten-mile run. Now, with the Toenail Clipper exercise bike, I can work out constantly and I don’t even have to worry about my toenails getting in the way. Really, you’ve changed my life–AGAIN! I love your show!”

Well, folks, you can hear it for yourself: this man really loves his exercise bike. Call in now and we’ll rush it right out the door. Don’t wait! Call now!

Brought to you by :

Shopping Royalty Universe : http://www.royaltyuniverse.com/

Another Television Sales Episode

Shopping Blogs — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 12:56:55 +0000

Welcome, welcome, one and all, to the greatest television shopping program that ever was: Omega Thrift-O-Vision 2010. Two thousand and ten great years of serving mankind from the comfort of her very own living room. As always, I’m Brad Johnson, your host, and I’m here to bring you the deals! You do your comparison shopping, you do your regular shopping, do your online shopping, you do your TV shopping–but you always do your BEST shopping right here on Omega Thrift-O-Vision 2010!

Now, if I sound excited it’s because I have so many wonderful products to show you today; too many wonderful products for my wallet! I could waste your time talking about how wonderful they are, or I could just move on and start spewing on and on about em’. What do you say? Are you ready for some shopping?

All right! Let’s begin!

Tonight’s first product is a waterproof toaster. Crazy, right?! You could ask me what they’ve done to make it safe; you could ask me why anyone would want a toaster in their shower–but I’d have to tell you: I’m no scientist, people. All I know is that this toaster can make your breakfast while you’re doing your shampoo and your body wash. Just imagine that: toast in the comfort of your own shower? You’re not going to have to be late to work because you got stuck making your toast. Not anymore! That, my friends, is a primitive, obsolete problem of the past. With this waterproof toaster, you’ll be done eating before you’re even dry!

Now, normally I’d tell you that this toaster goes for three easy payments of $49.95, but if you call right now, I’ll cut one of those payments out entirely! That’s right! You can own your very own waterproof toaster for just TWO easy payments of $49.95–the best deal that you’re going to find this decade. But wait, there’s more! If you call right now, I’ll also toss in a free can of waterproofing spray for your toast. It’s not FDA approved, but it’ll sure as hell keep your toast dry when you’re trying to eat it in the shower! You ever tried to eat a piece of soggy toast? It’s depressing! It’s like holding a congealed piece of failure in your hands! Call right now, and we’ll be sure to rush your delivery right out the door!
You’ve done your comparison shopping; you’ve done your online shopping–but have you ever heard of a deal this crazy or of product THIS GOOD? I think not!

We’re running out of time, here, so I’m going to move straight on into testimonials. This is Roger Rogerson from Australia. Take it away!

“Yeah, hi Brad. I just wanted to call in and say that the Omega Thrift-O-Vision 2010 Waterproof Toaster has really changed my life. I mean, before I bought it, I was several hours late to work every single day. I always struggled to get the toast into my conventional toaster before I hopped into the shower, but I always ended up screwing it up somehow. Now, with the Waterproof Toaster, I’m able to prepare my breakfast while I lather and rinse! It’s been a rough year with my wife leaving and taking the kids and the car and my house undergoing foreclosure, but it’s been so uplifting to know that no matter what truck stop shower I’m using, my toast is going to be ready on time!”

Wow, Roger. That really is an uplifting tale! You hear how happy Roger is, audience? You hear that? Well, call in right now and buy this product!

What a beautiful world we live in!

Brought to you by :

Royalty Universe : http://www.royaltyuniverse.com/

Welcome To Your New Home

Shopping Blogs — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:10:35 +0000

Welcome, sir or ma’am, to your new home. I know that a lot of you are doing some comparison shopping today–that many of you are following up on the online shopping leads that we sent out a while back–so I’ll try to keep things as informative as possible. My name is Brent, and I’ll be showing you around the home today. You may have met my coworker, Ralph, outside, but don’t worry about him. He won’t be joining us for the tour today.

Let’s start out here in the living room, the place where you’ll be spending your evenings. There’s a hole in wall over there, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. That is, of course, by design; nothing to worry about here. Sure, it lets in a pretty bad draft during the winter, but you can always plug it up with something like a television or a mini-fridge. Feel free to exercise your creativity when it comes to dealing with this beautiful, gaping hole in your living room wall.

If you’ll follow me, now, we’ll take a look at the dining room. Does it look a little bit small? I suppose that it does, but “small” is a word that carries such dreadfully negative connotations. If you’ve been shopping around recently, you’ve no doubt encountered much larger dining rooms. Heck, some of them might even have windows and room for a dinner table. This room, though–in all of its cozy splendor–is going to leave you with a sense of unmitigated freedom. Sure, it’s too small for a dining room table and it doesn’t have any windows, but don’t let that blind you to the world of possibilities it’s going to open up for you. You don’t have to worry about buying some big, fancy table, and you don’t even have to worry about eating in there. You can do whatever you want! It’s all up to you!

Now, if you’d follow me up these stairs, I’d be happy to show you the bedrooms. Watch your step, there–that stair is a bit loose. If you would, just skip that stair entirely. We had a bit of an accident earlier today, and I’d hate to use up any more of the hospital’s time.

All right, here we are: the master bedroom. You’ll notice a slight leak in the ceiling above the closet door over there. That’s by design, of course. We like to make sure that you don’t actually have to go outside to experience the splendor of the great outdoors. There’s a big dip in the floor, also by design. If you ever spill anything on the floor, you can rest assured that it’s going to collect right there–right at the center of the dip; super easy to clean up. We can’t get the closet door open right now, but rest assured, it’s a huge, walk-in closet. There’s also a convenient hole located in the north wall of the closet, which will, if you’re careful, take you into a crawl space that eventually leads to your kitchen.

Well, I think that about does it. Clearly, this home is catered to your convenience, safety, and comfort. We haven’t looked at the kitchen or the back yard yet, but we’d best leave that for another session entirely. I’m very confident that your comparison shopping is going to lead you back here this, the best home that you’ve ever seen; the best home that you’ve ever aspired to purchase and live in.

Once again, my name is Brent. Welcome to your future. Welcome, my dear friends, to your brand new home.

Brought to you by :

Discount Shopping

Ralph A Terrible Realator

Shopping Blogs — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:42:20 +0000

Have you ever shopped around for an apartment complex before? Are you familiar with the stress that most people endure when they’re shopping around for a place to live? It’s hard to describe, I know, but we’ve all felt it at one time or another. Shopping around for an apartment simply doesn’t compare to shopping around for a pair of shoes; for a new computer, a car, or something like that. Shopping around for an apartment (or a home, I suspect) is a lot like shopping around for a new life; for a new home base, and a new source of comfort. Thus, when we’re conducting this sort of shopping, we no doubt appreciate–even revere–the confidence of our realators. When they look at us and tell us that we’re going to be confortable in THIS apartment–in THIS new home–we’re naturally inclined to believe them; thus, we allow ourselves to relax for a few refreshing, life-restoring moments.

That is, unless our realators totally suck. And Ralph, the protagonist of our sad little tale–well, let’s just say that Ralph certainly and irrefutably belongs to the latter category of realators.

Unlike his coworkers, Ralph has never mastered the ability to sooth homebuyers and apartment renters with promises of a better, more comfortable future. Unlike his coworkers, Ralph has not mastered the art of using one’s appearance to convey power, confidence, and competance. Unlike most people in this modern world, Ralph has not mastered the art of speaking without choking on his own saliva and blushing. Ralph, in a sentance, is not the man who is going to help you–I mean really help you–move into your new home.

Let’s consider the mistakes that Ralph committed the last time he had to show a home to some prospective buyers. Sure, you may not think that you know all that much about how to sell a home, and maybe, just maybe, you really don’t. Of course, what you can do, though, is put yourself in the shoes of the poor people who thought that Ralph just might be able to find them the home of their dreams.

You should know, first and foremost, that Ralph showed up to his own open house in a car that might have found a better home in a junk yard than a parking lot. Sputtering and wheezing its way down the road, it came to a stop in front of the house with a thunderous belch of thick, black smoke. Ralph soon emerged from the vehicle, coughing and sputtering with equal enthusiasm, his face as red as the car’s chipping paint.

Ralph’s second mistake was perhaps the most damaging of his mistakes: he failed to successfully open the front door. He was sure, he insisted, that he had the correct key, but for whatever reason the door simply refused to yield to his command. He fought with it for several minutes, sweating and swearing under his breath. The crowd of prospective buyers was, at this point, clearly unimpressed with his efforts–shocked, even, at the words he chose when he was swearing at the door (not the usual ones, no sir!).

After Ralph had succeeded in opening the front door of the house–a feat which cost him forty five minutes of his time and the fees of a nearby locksmith–he swiftly hammered the final nail into the coffin that his presentation had come. As the front door opened, a terrifying sight came into a view: the house was completely gutted. He’d brought his buyers to the wrong home entirely; the open house was on the other side of town.

In conclusion, it’s important to note that not all realators are like Ralph. Ralph is, to say the very least, a uniquely qualified salesman: uniquely qualified to make the rest of his coworkers look really, really good.

The Laziest Man You Know Henry

Shopping Blogs — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 10:57:36 +0000

Henry was a man who never had to work a day in his entire life. When he was only twenty one years old, he inherited an enormous trust fund from his parents–what they’d saved up for his schooling before he’d decided not to go. And though Henry had initially enjoyed living off of the wealth of his parents, he quickly became bored of living life without any realistic ambitions. He’s spent a sizable amount of his inheritance shopping around for presents for his friends, but even this (ever so) humble activity began to bother him enormously over time. It was with all of this in mind that Henry set out to make some radical changes to his life. He wanted to become an ambitious young man–the kind of man to whom people might look up and say, “Wow, now that’s an ambitious young man!”

Of course, he knew that he could really make his money work for him if he put his mind to it. Thus, he started his “new” life by investing his money in several companies that had caught his attention in the magazines that he read. And though his parents begged and pleaded with him to diversify his investments–and though his parents were, themselves, rather established figures in the world of investing–Henry decided that he’d take a major gamble with a handful of companies in which he really, truly believed. Of course, it didn’t take long before the economic downturn brought Henry’s investments to an all time low, and he was back at the mall shopping for presents for his friends.

His next big idea was to start a petting zoo for the elderly. This, he convinced himself, was a market that no one had tapped. Sure, the elderly could go to the regular petting zoos, but they’d have to deal with all of those little kids running around all over the place; not the relaxing experience that they were really, truly looking for. Henry figured that he could enter the petting zoo market with a bang, introducing not only the first petting zoo geared at senior citizens, but the first petting zoo to feature real, full sized tigers! Safety, practicality, expense–these were concepts that were far, far away from Henry’s mind. Of course, that might explain why Henry mistakenly ordered men dressed in tiger suits instead of actual tigers–a mistake that did not bode well with his conservative, quiet-natured clientele.

Disheartened, ashamed, and confused, Henry once again set about shopping around for presents for his friends–something that, for one reason or another, brought him tremendous comfort when he stood in the face of failure. His parents begged and pleaded for him to return to school, to pursue an education and embark upon a normal, socially accepted path. The thought of such a normal life, though, was something that repulsed Henry a great deal. That is, until he came up with his best idea yet: a college for shopping .

The vision of a college for shopping practically punched Henry in the mind! There would be no sticky investments to deal with; no fully grown men in tiger costumes scaring the living daylights out of perfectly innocent senior citizens. This, he knew, was an idea that could actually work.

He’d teach people the philosophy of shopping for comfort–the philosophy of using your spending power as healing power, and of making sure that you, and your money, live up to the higher purpose of devoting your entire life to shopping! This idea was, no surprise, met with the enormous disapproval of Henry’s parents, but that would not stop him. If it killed him, he was going to spend all of his parent’s money shopping and teaching other people how to do the same. This, he concluded, was his life’s ultimate purpose.

The Shopper Who Judges

Shopping Blogs — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 20:27:28 +0000

Rebecca loved shopping . Online shopping , comparison shopping , regular, store-to-store window shopping — she really, truly, loved it all. It was this immutable love for shopping that initially caused Rebecca to start her own shopping blog, a place where she could explain her shopping habits to the digital world at large, tracking them and analyzing them–putting them to what she thought might be some better kind of use. In all honestly, she harbored dreams of shopping for a living–paying her bills by doing what she loved; living a life entirely without compromise. And of course, she found herself rather funny, but in a remarkably entitled sort of way–in a way that made her genuinely feel like she deserved to be heard; that her words carried the utmost relevance in the lives of everyone she saw around her.

Late one summer night, over several classes of wine and a few flavored cigarettes, Rebecca set about analyzing what she deemed to be “her findings regarding the multifaceted nature of the contemporary American shopper”. She loved the irony of the title–its pretensions to grandeur–and she quickly found herself delving into observations that would make even the most fastidious sociologist cringe with envy. Here, the author would like to share with his audience some of Rebecca’s remarkable findings, and in her own words, no less.

“The fat shopper at the plus-sized store: the loudest laugher that you’re ever going to find at the mall. I feel really bad for singling them out, but they seem to laugh louder and harder and longer than any other people I’ve ever met in my entire life.”

“The bored shopper: he or she who shops without aim or purpose. You’ll find this guy or gal circling racks of clothing, hardly looking at anything at all before they move on to the next store. I always get the feeling that they’re avoiding something important. Or maybe they’re just spying on the real shoppers, gathering data like me? I can never tell. At any rate, they drive business away from stores. They’re creepy, and they always seem to leave the minute they accidentally make eye contact with you. I dare say, we’d all be better off without them.”

“The hamburger guy: the guy who is always eating a hamburger in the exact same spot every time I get to the mall. Day or night, this guy is always eating a hamburger in the exact same spot! What’s worse, he’s an open-mouthed eater, and you can hear him chewing on the stuff from a half mile away! I’m all for a bit of nourishment when you’ve spent all of your energy shopping, but unless this guy works at the mall, he should really find a better place to grab a burger, and maybe try eating something that isn’t deep friend once in a while.”

“The jerk at the watch kiosk who’s always talking to his girlfriend on his cell phone. He can never make a sale because he’s always fighting with his girlfriend; also, because he won’t even put his phone down when he has an entire line of customers waiting at his kiosk. If that guy can sell a watch, then I can fly to the moon with the power of my mind. And his armpits sweat really bad even in the dead of winter. I really hate that guy.”

What Rebecca doesn’t know, though, is that she isn’t the only observant mall-goer; far from it. There’s actually an entire site devoted to spotting Rebecca and analyzing her behavior. This, you should know, was the most recent post made by the site’s author:

“Rebecca is getting weirder and weirder the more I watch her. I think she has a thing for some guy in the food court. He’s always there, chomping down on a hamburger and reading comics. She’s always staring at him and taking notes. Weird? I think so! And really, when is this chick going to buy something? All I’ve ever seen her do is circle racks of clothing; I’ve never seen her buy even a single thing! More to come later…”

Escape

Shopping Blogs — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 15:57:48 +0000

Howard was a conflicted man to say the very least. You see, Howard was a man who spent the majority of his free time plotting. This, perhaps, was but a side effect of his rigorous professional life–a life from which he yearned to escape, but one that always kept him coming back with its stability and its free air conditioning and coffee. Outside of his professional life, Howard sought to exercise as much control over the circumstances of his life as he possibly could. He found an outlet for this sort of behavior in online shopping sites , particularly the ones that let you bid on expensive items for fractions of their actual worth. There was just something about landing a great deal that made Howard feel like he could conquer the entire world if he so desired.

One monumental afternoon, Howard came across a deal that seemed too good to be true. He’d found a car on the online shopping site’s registry that was selling for a mere $100–a car that was, according to its highly-rated seller, in perfect mechanical order with “only a few minor blemishes on the passenger-side front panel”. This, Howard knew, was the online shopping deal that would truly establish him as a master of his craft. “This,” he thought to himself, “is a war most certainly worth fighting.”

An intense paranoia overtook Howard. After he’d secured his bid on the car, he set about closing all of the blinds in his computer room. He decided that the odor of good deals was in the air, and that he’d have to take every necessary step to make sure that his neighbors weren’t on to his game. Heaving himself up from his computer, he then set about making sure that all of the house’s blinds were closed–you know, just in case. In a frenzy, he set about checking and doubling checking the locks on his home’s many doors. “This,” he decided, “is a deal that merits a touch of extreme, indiscriminate caution.”

When he’d made sure that all of his doors were locked, he set about nailing them shut with large wooden planks and oversized construction nails. Sure, he was doing a substantial amount of damage to his home, but he simply wasn’t willing to spare any expense when it came to making sure that he landed this deal. He knew that his wife was going to be coming home later as well, but surely she’d understand why he’d nailed the doors shut and closed all of the blinds.

The thought of his wife coming home inspired a new idea in Howard’s mind: the garage door! Something had to be done about the garage door! In the time it takes a normal person to tie his shoes, Howard had constructed a full-on blowtorch using his toaster and a pressurized propane container from his mini-grill. He made quick work of the garage door, welding it to the metal water-proofing on the garage’s floor. Just to be safe, he applied a healthy amount of cement to the welding, with just a touch of rubber cement on top of that.

Tired, exasperated, and thoroughly shocked by the speed with which he’d converted his home into a bunker, Howard set about climbing the stairs that led back to his fortified computer room. Midway up the stairs, he took a break; such was the extent of his exasperation. He closed his eyes and began to think about the victory that was soon to come. He thought about the enjoyment that he, his wife, and their kids would get out of this mid-eighties sports vehicle, and about how he’d…

A loud alert-sound blared from Howard’s computer, and at that very moment, a lump formed in Howard’s throat. He’d been so busy prepping the house that he’d forgotten to check back on the auction, and someone had placed a higher bid.

Looking over the house–the nailed-shut doors; the melted, cemented, rubber-cemented garage door–Howard began to understand what it takes (and doesn’t take) to make a winner.

Brought to you by :

Shopping Fiction : http://blog.royaltyuniverse.com/category/fictional-stories/

Your First Day at Oscars Coat Palace

Shopping Blogs — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:24:17 +0000

Welcome, dear reader, to your first day at Oscar’s Coat Palace . Perhaps you’ve been around here before, shopping for a coat for yourself or a loved one. Perhaps you’ve done a bit of online shopping on our industry leading website. Or perhaps you’ve seen our large billboard on the highway: “Shopping Has Never Been So Fun!” it reads, with a picture of a child tugging at his mother’s oversized coat. However you’ve heard about us in the past, though, we now have something wonderful in common: we work in the same palace–jot that down–palace of coats.

We’re going to be doing a lot of training today, so I hope that you haven’t forgotten your pen and paper. It was on the first page of your application, which, if you recall, you filled out on your own paper with your own pen. We like to promote independence at Oscar’s Coat Palace.

Over there, right by the front door, you can see our clearance coat rack. At Oscar’s Coat Palace, we make shopping easy–so easy that it’s fun. We like our shoppers to encounter the deals as soon as they open the door. That’s why we put the clearance rack where it is. “Encounter the Deals”–write that down; it’s a phrase that you’ll be using pretty often.

Over there–those are the cash registers. Those are what we use to turn coats into money–those and our award-winning smiles. That’s right: our sales representatives win awards for their smiles at international coat selling expos. Now’s probably a good time to bring this up: we want all of you to work on your smiles for at least thirty minutes a day. Feel free to use the mirrors in the bathroom as often as you’d like, or feel free to use the mirror’s in the dressing rooms when we’re not busy. Fire safety regulations require me to inform you that no more than two employees can–I’m sorry, may–occupy the same dressing room at any given time.

Behind the cash registers, you’ll find Betty and Pam. They’re our cashiers. No need to introduce yourself, though–you’re replacing them.

Way, way back at the other end of the store, you’ll catch a glimpse of Brad, our general manager. To his right, you’ll find Bradley K., the regional manager, not to be mistaken with our Brad. I repeat: do not mistake Brad for Bradley under any circumstances. Right now, Brad is laughing at one of Bradley’s many terrible jokes. If Bradley ever tells you a terrible joke , take the opportunity to practice your award-winning smile. The more convincing it is, the better your chances are of keeping your job, and, if you’re lucky, representing us at one of the aforementioned international coat selling expos.

Now, I’d like for you to open up the gift bag that you were given when you came in today. Inside, you’ll find a pen, another sheet of paper, and an envelope. After my presentation, I’d like for you to write one of your deepest, darkest secrets on that sheet of paper, using that pen, and seal it in the envelope. You’ll hand those in to me in a few hours, and I’ll deliver them to Brad. Every so often, Brad likes to open an envelope and read a secret over the loudspeaker. The customers love it.

And finally, I’d like to introduce you to your new uniform. Guard this uniform with your life, and wear it as often as you like. We have a great incentive program for wearing your uniform outside of the workplace, though you’ll have to sign an agreement that prevents you from engaging in particular kinds of behavior. If you’re interested in this program, please let me know at the end of the seminar.

Now, in several minutes we’re going to open the front doors and the shopping is going to begin. Are there any questions?

Jewels and Failure They Make a Great Couple

Shopping Blogs — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:05:12 +0000

There’s something strange that happens to a man when he knows that he has to go shopping for jewelry in the near future–something very strange, indeed. On the whole, his disposition begins to sour a bit; such is usually the case when a man knows that his future bears only the worst kind of failure: the disapproval of an alleged soul mate. But perhaps it would behoove the author of this story to avoid such broad generalizations and stick to the facts at hand. Let us, then, focus on our protagonist: Arthur Crempon, a man who lives his life entirely, and unapologetically, through his obsessions.

Several days ago, now, Arthur Crempon decided that he had met his soul mate–a certain Alice Flemming from the accounting department of his workplace. The tricky thing, though, is that Arthur failed to inform Alice of his decision (as if calling it a “decision” doesn’t give away the direction this story is headed!). He’d never spoken to her, and he’d hardly ever seen her, but he simply couldn’t go on ignoring an idea that had been percolating in the back of his mind for several days: I am supposed to spend the rest of my life with this person. And while Arthur is a man known for his obsessions–a man known for acting on impulse, for ignoring the potential repercussions of his actions–he decided that he was going to subject himself, and Alice, to the honor of a full-on introduction.

Now, Arthur is the sort of man whose palms begin to perspire (visibly, sometimes) when he becomes nervous, and the mere thought of said introduction was enough to make Arthur’s hands fill up a small above-ground pool. Thus, in an effort to steer this conversation away from the surreal and sublime realm that is Arthur’s awkwardness, he decided that he would buy Alice a gift to lighten the mood and make himself appear to be far more giving and charitable than he actually is.

‘What better gift,’ he pondered, ‘Than a nice, simple piece of jewelry? Something that screams, “I’m willing to spend money on this, that’s how sure I am!”‘

At the jewelry store itself, Arthur was quickly overwhelmed by the number of items that were on display. Likewise, he was overwhelmed by the number of shoppers who seemed to disapprove of his indecisiveness with dagger-like stares. After several blinding minutes of overwhelming confusion, Arthur chose to seek out the advice of a professional. Gesturing wildly, he eventually succeeded in getting the store clerk to heed his cry for help.

Quicky, he explained the circumstances of his gift : that he didn’t know this woman–this wonderful woman–but he knew, deep down, in some half-queazy kind of way, that she was the one for him; and that he wanted something that might match the kinds of clothes that she wore, or perhaps her hair, which was either blonde or brown, he couldn’t remember. And he wanted to make sure that it wasn’t too expensive, but that it wasn’t too cheap either. His stammered on in this manner for several minutes before trailing off to a stop. The store clerk was, no doubt, thoroughly confused at this point, and certainly not ready to make any solid recommendations. She thought back to her training manual; the “How to deal with Irate Shoppers” section came to mind, so she decided to ask a few more questions and build a little bit of rapport.

“So you’ve never met this woman?” she questioned, returning Arthur’s intense gaze.
“Correct.”
“And you’re sure that she’s your soul mate?” she continued, smiling slightly.
“Absolutely sure.”

For a moment, she imagined herself in Alice’s position, though she didn’t know who Alice was. She thought to herself, ‘What’s something that this lunatic could give me that wouldn’t freak me out?’ And before she knew it, she’d come up with the shopping idea of the century.

“We have a superb selection of luxury gift cards,” she said, confident that she’d saved another woman’s afternoon.

Brought to you by :

Fictional Stories : http://blog.royaltyuniverse.com/category/fictional-stories/

A Special Gift

Shopping Blogs — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 13:53:22 +0000

Sally’s son, Rupert, was turning thirteen years old on Saturday, and she knew that she’d have to buy him something special. For a boy, she thought, a thirteenth birthday must be a pretty big deal–a right of passage, if you will. She thought that she might get him a ring–something that, perhaps, he’d look back on in his adulthood; something that he’d really, truly remember.

“Really, though,” her husband had corrected her, “We should just get him something that he wants, you know?” And she did know. She’d still get her son that ring, she vowed to herself, but she’d compliment the gift with something a bit more simple–something that her pale, wistful son would undeniably enjoy: a video game console .

“I think it’s a great idea,” her husband had said, tossing on his jacket. “Do you need any help or anything? I know how much you hate online shopping …”

“Well, I’m not going to be shopping online,” she’d corrected, tossing on her own jacket. “I’ll just go shopping out at Jimbo’s Electronics. I mean, they’ve got everything he’d ever want, don’t you think?”

Her husband smiled. “I’m sure that they do,” he assured her, and with that, they were off on their separate ways.

Buying the ring wasn’t a problem. She had already known exactly what she wanted when she’d left the house that day, and she knew exactly where she was going to buy it. But the game console–well, that was far outside of her comfort zone. Sure, she’d spent many dinners listening to her son gush about the newest games and the newest consoles and all of that garbage–but really, she’d never paid attention to any of the specifics. ‘And why should I?’ she thought to herself, parking the car and heading into the Electronics store. She was an adult, she could read, and she knew her son rather well–surely her comparative shopping could produce a gift that she’d be proud of. Right?

Inside the store, her confidence began to wane. Standing in the doorway, hands inside of her pockets, Sally felt as though she’d stepped into some sort of alternate reality. Her vista was one of Japanese anime bleeding seamlessly into high definition televisions and computer software, inflatable chairs and green Styrofoam fists that roared as children punched each other playfully. To her left, a forty year old man shook his head violently as he played a plastic guitar and sang into a plastic microphone. She wanted a map–a map with a key–but more importantly, she wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.

“And what would you be shopping for today?” called a sales representative from the video game section. Surely, she thought, this was a sign from the Gods.

“Well,” she responded, scratching her temple, “I was just shopping around for a video game console for my son. He’s turning thirteen on Saturday.”

“Thirteen! All right!” cheered the sales representative. “I have just the thing for him!” Weaving through customers that were, at best, a third her age, Sally followed the sales rep through a brightly colored, painfully noisy gaming section. They stopped in front of a gigantic red console–a display case equipped with the newest, most desired gaming console: the Game Master 3000. “This,” continued the sales rep, pausing deliberately, “Is the latest and greatest in video game technology. Built in WiFi; four controller ports with optional wireless hookups; built in gamer security to guarantee that your friends can hijack your account; Bluetooth capability and voice-chat technology; comes with four games already, and an entire year of free online services; the very best…”

For a moment, she felt as if she were staring directly into the future of her son. And the next moment, she knew that this man–this anonymous sales rep–knew more about what her son liked than she did. “You know what?” she interrupted, blushing slightly. “I’ll just go ahead and take it. Do you guys do gift wrapping here?”

“Of course!” excalimed the sales rep, nearly shouting. As he took off to start wrapping the gift , Sally decided that perhaps this shopping experience wasn’t as bad as she’d initially made it out to be. ‘And really,’ she thought to herself, ‘That’s a nice ring I got him. I’ll just save it for when he turns eighteen.’

On the way home, Sally figured she’d surprise her son by gushing about the console as powerfully as the sales rep had. That, she figured, would be as good a birthday present as any.

Brought to you by :

Shopping Blog : http://blog.royaltyuniverse.com/

A Lousy Santa

Shopping Blogs — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 15:10:04 +0000

There’s something very special about people who spend the majority of their time working with (or for) other people: they become remarkably judgmental, remarkably quickly. Such is certainly the case with Stephen, a mall Santa at the city’s largest mall. Of course, if Stephen were to hear me refer to him as a “mall Santa”, it wouldn’t go over lightly. Though Stephen would acknowledge that he does, indeed, wear a Santa costume at the mall during the holiday season; though he would dually acknowledge that he does receive biweekly payments for wearing said costume at said mall–he would strictly and categorically object to the connotations that come along with the “mall Santa” occupation. For the sake of simplicity, though–and because Stephen does not know about this facetious little tale–we’ll henceforth refer to his occupation with utmost honesty.

Let’s take a look at Stephen, now. There he is, making his way from the parking garage to the center of the mall. He’s making his way through a sea of people doing what they do best during the holiday season: shopping. That woman over there, the one with the giant red hat and the mean look in her eye: shoe shopping . That man over there, dragging his children across the food court, scolding one of them for spilling his soda on his shoes: electronics shopping . The woman over there, her hair in a bun, one hand holding a cinnamon bun, the other holding a cellphone into which she screams and cackles wildly: shopping, certainly, but not for Christmas–the worst kind of person, Stephen thinks. And really, it’s here that we should begin to look at Stephen a bit more closely.

You see, as Stephen makes his way to the giant Christmas tree at the center of the mall–Santa’s throne, they call it–he can’t help but judge everyone that he encounters. And these judgments that riddle Stephen’s mind like pockmarks–well, they aren’t of the sort to which you and I are acquainted. There’s something fundamental about Stephen’s judgments, something that transcends the surface. Stephens sees–or, perhaps more accurately, thinks that he sees–the real truth behind a person every time that he sees a person, however brief their encounter may be. Today, he’s decided, he feels most repulsed by the cold, uncaring gazes of the mall’s many parents, dragging their children from one store to the next with such dedication and conviction, such calculation, that he’s led to question the quality and sincerity of their parenting.

‘Just how much can a parent care about their child,’ he angrily ponders, ‘When they’re half-way ripping their arm out of their socket just to make it to the next big deal? What in the world is going on with this country?’

As Stephen nears his throne, a little boy, red-faced and crying, catches his attention. The little boy is turning around in circles, screaming–looking for his negligent parents, no doubt. Stephen knows this sort of parent; he’s encountered it several times at work. Not thinking; shopping; in a never-ending quest for the next “big deal”–a parent leaves his child outside of a store for a few minutes. Of course, such cold and uncaring parents never fail to realize that just a few minutes of separation can seem like an eternity to a scared, confused, and no-doubt neglected little kid.

‘How in the world can parents be so uncaring?’ Stephen chimes to himself. ‘I dare say: this time, I’ll step in and do what’s right.’

And as Stephen makes his way to the little boy, the mall’s general manager delivers a blood curdling message over the loud speaker.

“To the owner of a blue, 1996 Ford explorer on Level A of the parking garage: your lights are on, and you left your little kid in the back seat.”

Blushing wildly, Stephen hurries towards the parking garage . ‘For the sake of all that’s holy,’ he chides, ‘Sharon’s going to kill me if she hears that I did this again…’

Brought to you by :

Shopping Blogs : http://blog.royaltyuniverse.com/

Michaels Blunder

Shopping Blogs — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 12:33:20 +0000

There’s a tiny little store called “Copy Right!” in one of St. Louis’ many malls, but you’ve probably never seen it. It’s a basic copy shop—color copies, laminates, oversized photo prints, the works. Its owner, Michael Bradley, is known by his friends and family as a man poorly equipped for the challenges of modern life and society—as a man who might sooner get a paperclip stuck in his ear than correctly balance his checkbook. It was in an anxious frenzy that Michael purchased this store, eager to prove that he was a competent man, and perhaps a bit more eager to prove that he’d really learned something from that dreadful experience with the paperclip. Some people operate well under stress, but Michael Bradley is not one of these people.

You see, when Michael Bradley was going through negotiations with the business’ previous owner, he failed to realize that he had never actually seen the store that he was purchasing. Of course, he knew that it was in the mall—somewhere in that gigantic mall with its mess of shoppers. As he was signing paperwork and shaking hands, he fixated on the notion of a large white store with white walls and a skylight in the ceiling, and over time he came to believe that this was the store that he was purchasing. But like drops of milk in a glass of water, Michael’s thoughts and reality mixed partially at best.

When the deal had gone through, the business’ previous owner, smiling wildly, led Michael to the front door of his new workplace. It was a great location, the previous owner chimed, leading Michael up the staircase of the parking garage. Halfway between its second and third levels, the previous owner stopped, took a bow, and introduced Michael to his new life: an inauspicious utility door on which “Michael’s Copy Right!” was scribbled in Expo marker. As the door squeaked open, a long, dark, humid hallway came into view. Its sole light source was a single strand of Christmas lights that stretched only halfway down its tremendous length.

It took a while to reach the end of the hallway–a full thirty seconds, walking at a remarkably brisk pace. Still, though, Michael could hardly contain his excitement. Sure, he’d have to dress the hallway up–buy a few more strings of Christmas lights, perhaps, and possibly a full on neon sign–but surely, he thought, his customers would forgive him for the treacherous walk when they met him, the proud new proprietor of their favorite copy shop. Right?

Michael was so preoccupied with his own thoughts that he barely realized that he’d finally reached the store itself. It, too, was dark and musty, and for some unexplained reason the front windows were tinted. Michael prodded the previous owner to open the security gate at the front of the shop, thinking that maybe, just maybe, his customers would prefer to enter the shop through the mall rather than the utility door in the parking garage.

“Well, it’s locked shut pretty permanently—broken, I mean,” admitted an increasingly jovial previous owner. “But really, really, the customers just love the back entrance! They think it’s unique!”

Michael pressed his face against tinted display windows. He was hoping that he’d catch a glimpse of an overcrowded mall, brimming with happy shoppers just waiting to spend their money on quality copies. No such luck. Instead, Michael’s view was dominated by a veritable wall of derelict Kiosks. Looking further, he noticed that this wall of Kiosks was itself walled in by the Mall’s fountain, which was, in turn, walled in by an aggressive amount of yellow construction tape. If any shoppers were going to get through to his store in the mall itself, they’d have to leap from the mall’s second floor, land in the fountain, and climb over the wall of Kiosks—all that and they’d have to be carrying a blowtorch if they wanted to get in through the broken front door. Michael turned to face the previous owner.

“Really, now,” he sighed, running his hand through his hair. “Just how am I supposed to get any shoppers? Have you ever had a shopper find her way into here?”

The previous owner let out a rumbling laugh. “I’m looking at my number one shopper right now!” he exploded, punching Michael lightly on the shoulder. But it wasn’t until the man produced a small paperclip from his ear that Michael understood the overwhelming gravity of his mistake.

“Oh, man!” boomed the previous owner, his face turning red. “How’d that get up in there again? Hey, Michael—do me a favor and don’t tell my family about this! Last time I got a paperclip stuck in my ear… Well, let’s just say that it didn’t turn out well!”

And with a thunderous clap on the shoulder, Michael was left to his fate.

Brought to you by :

Shopping : http://www.discountjoe.com/