It is really cold as I type this, right now the temperature has been struggling to get above 25, and there is 15 or so inches of snow on the ground after a surprise storm hit yesterday and overnight last night..
There is no use crying over spilled ice, the winter has just begun and the cold times ahead are coming..
But a huge number of stores crying today, I actually had the day off from work and decided to go to a few different shopping venues .. My prime objective of the day: finish Christmas shopping for some, start for others.
I did not get too far, I walked the in the various stores, struggled to find the perfect item for anyone, and for the most part left each place empty-handed and frustrated.
While regrouping, I downloaded the Amazon.com app–I know I’m behind the times.
Let me first say this: a friend summed my Internet life up this way: I was ahead of the curve until the year 2004, became stagnant, and now have fallen way behind. He’s right! I think about it, lamenting malls as they die and hoping for retail to make a comeback, and realize now that it won’t. It is beyond unrealistic to assume that any positive news will come out of this year’s shopping seen for retail stores ..
The jig is up, the writing is on the wall, the end is nigh.
I realized that today. I saw the writing clear, I saw Christmas decorations from the late 20th century still hanging. I heard antiquated Christmas music playing over loudspeakers, being broadcast to empty malls with eerie echoes cascading through the large caverns of retail hell–infernos where no one burned, but boredom killed.
Indeed it is over.
Today, a day which will live in infamy. I am leaving the retail shopping scene..
It’s frustrating to think that you travel for miles to get to a location which was once the central point of shopping. Now you’re lucky to be able to get tacky crafts or pointless momentos. Things that no one wants, things that no one really even appreciates or needs. Just crap. And not much of a choice of crap, but a bare bones minuscule sampling it.
Yes indeed, this is what retail has become. It cannot be supported anymore, the future is not right for it, online is how it will be.
I think I fully understand now why brick and mortar stores are being vacated. They are abhorrently pointless.. They are time consuming and, when you know you can find the exact thing you want with just one click an a speedy delivery, they have became antiquated and tiresome..
I am half sad letting retail go, have liberated.
I held in too long. It’s 2014, and I still had this nostalgic belief that malls could make a return to fame, take possession of a new generation, and become relevant again.
Instead I saw shoppers–smaller than any year previous–appearing like bored zombies as they struggled to find a gift. They were oping for nonsense over substance, because that’s what happens when you are oven good options or fiber products.
I welcome my online consumption.
I mays ever consider getting groceries delivered by drone when that can happen.
Meanwhile ..
Goodbye retail. It was real.
Now it’s virtual.
Goodbye.
