IgloONotes

So if you’ve all been keeping up with recent news you’ll know that the Canadian dollar has surpassed the US dollar in value. For us Canadians, that only means one thing…shopping!

Looking for the best place to go netted only one result; Great Lakes Crossing. It’s a shopping mall filled with outlet stores and has a land area of about 1.4 million square feet! As a plus, it was only 45 minutes away, which meant more time for shopping.

I would be going with two friends, both girls. You must be thinking…are you crazy?! Me, being a guy and both my friends being professed shopaholics. Thanks in part to my many travels in China, I was prepared for what lay ahead. I had already been on a few shopping marathons in my life.

In my previous post, we had bought a 2005 Toyota Matrix. This would have been the first time that I would be able to fully stretch out its legs on the American Interstate. Keep in mind the car that I had driven previously was a 1991 Toyota Previa. I can’t even begin to compare how much of a difference it was! On corners where the van would roll over so much it felt like you were on an amusement park ride, the Matrix would just stay flat and grip right through.

It had no problems at all keeping up with traffic, but if I did need to make a pass, it would require a foot to the floor and a downshift into third. Yes, the power was a bit lacking but I wasn’t expecting hyper car speeds with only 118 hp.

The biggest difference on the highway was the amount of deceleration when I lifted my foot off the throttle. In the van, I would lift off for some heavy traffic at 120 kph, feeling a significant reduction in speed. In the matrix, I would be cruising at 120 and if I needed to lift, the car would just cruise along at around the same speed with no drama at all. Speaking about the engine, driving the van at the optimum speed had a bit of guess work involved. At 120 kph, it would be loud and buzzy. At 130, things would quiet down a bit but once you started to nudge 140, all the bees started to wreak havoc.
In the Matrix, it was a simple case of setting a speed you were comfortable with and letting the car do the rest of the work.

The steering wheel is an especially comfortable device. It’s perfectly contoured to your hand and it weights up nicely on the highway. It would be nice if it was a bit tighter but I can’t complain. My van had a steering wheel that made me feel like I manning a ship, which wasn’t far off from the real thing. You’d rock the wheel back and forth and you would feel a wollop, a roll, then a bit of a jiggle. It makes me wonder how I lived with that car for so long.

After a quick 45 minute ride, we had arrived at what would become our home for the next 7 hours. Being professional shoppers, my friends bee lined for the map and planned their attack. It was all very well thought out. They calculated a maximum time for being in the shopping mall, had a selection of stores they wanted to go to and had a brief estimate of how long they could spend at each store. I had never seen this kind of…skill. Amazing.

I tend to think there are two types of shoppers, the window shoppers and the spending shoppers. I was quite interested to know what type of shoppers my friends were but by the first store, I had already found out. I went to go check out the guy’s stuff in the GAP store and by the time I had finished, my friend had already picked up a shirt. This was going to be interesting!

The absolute worst thing about shopping in the US is finding the same things you bought in Canada because almost all the time, you’re going to feel ripped off. Case in point. My friend had just bought a pair of high heels in Canada for around a hundred dollars. After no more than a few minutes in a shoe store, she had found the same pair for $39.99. There were two things she could do; keep the $100 pair of shoes and forever regret paying $60 more or, buy the pair here and return the others. I don’t even need to tell you what choice she made.

Our first real eye-opener of the day came in the form of a nail polishing salesman. As we were walking pas this booth, this sales guy who I shall name Bob pulled us in for a demonstration. He claimed that by using a simple polishing tool, he could bring out the natural beauty of your nails and make them shine just like they would after using a bottle of nail polish.

It was all quite amusing really. He took my friend’s hand and strut his stuff.
“First, you start with the black side, moving side to side”
-All of us staring intently at the nail
“Then, you move to the grey side and do the same thing”
-Still staring
“Finally, you use the white side and bring out the natural beauty of your nails…are you ready?”

After a dramatic show of product, he revealed the difference, and WOW!

I am not one to be easily amused by manicure products but this was one exception. Her nail was shiny just like a finely polished Ferrari. It glinted in the light and I was so thoroughly impressed that I asked to have my thumbnail polished.

Then came the question.

“How are you going to pay? Cash or credit?”

The thing was, they really, really wanted to buy the nail polishing thingamabob but it came in a $60 package with hand lotion and a liquid that supposedly healed the dead skin around your nail. This guy must have learnt a thing or two from the Chinese because the tricks he used were really reminiscent of shopping in China.

“If you buy this right now, I will give you a free gift.”

We all like free gifts and who couldn’t say no? You can imagine then, the looks on our faces when he pulled out a plastic bag.

He then proceeded to chop the price down, even taking $5.00 out of his commission to give us a ‘special’ offer. In the end, he settled on $20.00 for the whole package. We really wanted to buy it but in the end, practicality won over and decided that we really wouldn’t have the time to polish our nails everyday and the bottle of lotion would just increase the clutter. My friend especially felt for him as she had been in the same situation selling knives. Thanks, but no thanks.

We continued our shopping spree, picking up a pair of Timberland shoes that I just couldn’t say no to. $19.99 for a brand new pair? Yes please!

Much to my chagrin was the decisions my friends had to make about buying their stuff. Some things they would really want, but just couldn’t justify spending the money. Take one of the shirts for example. It looked pretty nice, but she already had one similar to it. After many looks in the mirror and other opinions, she decided to flip the coin. Heads –buy, tails –walk out of the store. One dramatic coin flip later and we turned out of the store with no regrets. We almost made it around the corner but she just couldn’t live with the thought of not making the purchase. She must have forgotten what side the coin landed on.

There was one purse that was really unique in that it was semicircular and had a black heart as part of its design. She had just purchased a new handbag a few stores before and thus didn’t really know what to do. Being the guy, I gave her a piece of advice:  buy the handbag and if you decide that you don’t want it, give it away as a present! Two handbags later, problem solved.

Before I end, there is one scene which I absolutely must describe to you. Being girls, their day would not have been complete without a browse through Victoria’s Secret. Not entirely keen on browsing through the ladies underwear section, I elected to sit outside.

The first thing that came to my mind is that they should really make the seats outside that store more comfortable because inevitably, there will be crowds of men waiting outside. One guy sat by the side of the door with about five shopping bags, head down, looking rather stressed. On my left sat another guy, eyes closed, with bags at his feet. Over on the far left, a guy had succumbed to playing with his cell phone. On my bench was a row of shopped-out men who seemed to be there only because their wives threatened them.

To sum it all up, I was happy because I picked up a pair of new shoes and got to hang out with two cool friends for a day. My friend were happy because they had collectively bought three pairs of shoes, two handbagss, two wallets, two shirts and…I think that’s it. We had shopped for a straight 7 hours and despite that, I didn’t feel that tired. I guess my training in China really did pay off.

Tags: great lakes crossing, Matrix 4WD, Shopping