Blinded by the light

There is a store on my way from home to work that, as Em says, rhymes with Smarget. Yesterday I stopped there to get some of their coffee and I came away with the realization that geniuses work there. How else can I explain a relatively sane woman’s first reaction upon entering through the double wide automatically opening doors, “Ooooo, pretty!” Somehow, though, I made it past this first display still heading directly toward the coffee. The problem is, on the way to the coffee aisle, I’m glancing down all the other aisles, and what do I see? Nothing in the aisle itself, but stacked before the wall at the far end of the aisle, trios of red bowls. “Ooooo, pretty.” I turn and head toward them. It was early in my shopping trip so my sane internal voice still had some control. “You don’t need three plastic red bowls.” I put them back, but the damage was done. I’d been pulled off my direct route to the coffee and into Aladdin’s cave.

Lights everywhere. Displays of Christmas trees lit in all different colors, different sized bulbs, lit wreaths, lit garlands, lit displays of reindeer, Santas, snowmen and gingerbread houses.

“Ooooo, pretty.”

They also have coordinating rolls of wrapping paper, Christmas cards, gift tags, ornaments, holiday packaged candy, cinnamon and peppermint scented candles and all of it reflecting the lights.

“Ooooo, pretty.”

The sane little voice in my head tried to regain control. Really. I even heard it repeating one word over and over, “coffee,” which was fortunate because I won’t be going back to that store for a while and I would have been really embarrassed if I’d forgotten to get the coffee before I left.

Maybe I should go back sooner, though, to study how they do it. It would be research for our chocolate truffle company and I’m sure the IRS approves expenses for research. Don’t they?