I am on a mission and that mission is to buy something from Hollister - a gift card in fact for a Christmas present.
You would think that it would be easy - it being a shop and all that, whose main aim, one might assume, would be to sell to the public. Apparently not.
Attempt number one saw me going into the store. The first thing that struck me was how dark it was. I thought that having a shop which was so dark that you couldn't actually see what was being sold was an interesting concept. Still, I am prepared to accept that I am old fashioned like that and the stores that spend a fortune on fancy lighting are missing a trick - and at least they were being environmentally friendly.
The till, I was told, was upstairs. So up I went. Now, I am pretty healthy but by the time that I got to the top I was able to breathe a bit less easily than when I was at the bottom. There I found three tills, one shop assistant and about 533 people in the queue. Being British I don't mind a bit of a queue - in fact if you grew up near my local chippie, you got pretty used to queing on a Friday night - but that was ridiculous. So off I went. Apparently the fact that it had been a busy weekend meant that most of the staff were too tired to turn up for work but enforcements were on their way. Jolly Good.
Attempt number two saw me return to the same store, go up the same stairs to the same tills. "Aha" I thought, "my luck is in". This time there was no one queing but that was probably just as well because they had run out of Gift Cards. How can a store run out of Gift Cards in the run up to Christmas? Anyway, there it was. So off I went (again) - stopping to speak to the Manager on the way to point out to her, politely of course, that running out of Gift Cards at Christmas probably wasn't the best PR/marketing policy ever invented.
Trip number three saw me literally do that - trip over a leather pouffe thing which was placed in front of a leather chair which was presumably there for customers to take a rest in when they could only get one member of staff to serve the queue of 533 people. My friend and I did see the funny side of it but that, combined with the hideously loud music (not so environmentally friendly after all so let's untick that box), lack of lighting, lengthy queue and general irritation that I already feel on just seeing the signage meant that I left for a third time WITHOUT A GIFT VOUCHER!
The problem that I have is that it would appear that 6, 341, 611 people have "liked" Hollister on Facebook so the problem must be with me. I know that I am not cool, or trendy, but neither am I prepared to accept that I am such a duffer that I don't "get" the whole Hollister think. No, I need to get a grip and so, in the spirit of Christmas, I will try again tomorrow......
