Today, my fiance and I set up our wedding gift registries. We knew it would be time consuming, but we had no idea just how tiring it would be. Here's a rundown of the afternoon's activities.
1 p.m. -- Arrive at the mall. We go straight to Macy's so that my relatives in Pennsylvania have somewhere to shop for us, because they don't have too many good stores there and some folks are not internet savvy.
1:15 p.m. -- Lady who helps us sent us out into the store with a gun thing to scan what we wanted. I make the mistake of letting my fiance use the gun, and he makes a funny noise every time he scans something and repeatedly tries to scan my butt because he thinks it's funny. We don't find much that we really really want but did find a few fun items. We almost register for a gigantic serving dish that looks like a turkey, but in the fear that someone might buy it for us, we decide not to.
1:40 p.m. -- Finish scanning stuff at Macy's, return to the desk to find the lady who helped us engaged with a customer.
1:45 p.m. -- Apparently the customer's credit card is not going through, so we continue to wait.
1:50 p.m. -- The lady finally pawns off rejected credit card lady on someone else and helps us wrap up. She gives us a free canvas tote bag, which is worth the trip.
1:55 p.m. -- Leave Macy's for Williams-Sonoma.
2:00 p.m. -- Fill out a form for Williams-Sonoma gift registry.
2:02 p.m. -- Give the form back to the lady behind the counter and wait for her to type our information into the computer. Politely turned down offer of free sample of espresso from lady who thought we were standing by the espresso machine because we wanted one.
2:05 - 2:10 p.m. -- Go through the form with lady behind the counter, line by line, at her request, so that she will spell everything right.
2:15 p.m. -- Look around while waiting for lady behind counter to finish. Espresso lady asks if we are sure we don't want to try an espresso; we politely decline.
2:17 p.m. -- Lady behind the counter hands us a paper that has our registry information and find my name is spelled wrong. Gave it back and asked her to fix it and waited some more.
2:25 p.m. -- Make small talk with espresso lady, who ends up being the most helpful person in that store.
2:30 p.m. -- Finally cave and let espresso lady get us an espresso.
2:35 p.m. -- Lady behind the counter gives us the little gun thingy and we go out into the store. Espresso lady follows us because it's just so exciting. We ask her for help with an item that won't scan, however, and she's not sure what to do, but she does help us find someone who knows.
2:45 p.m. -- None of the items at Williams-Sonoma seem to still have the stickers with the bar codes on them. We have to ask bald guy behind the counter for help, and he finds someone who can figure out what to scan. I kind of miss the espresso lady.
2:50 p.m. -- Having scanned a bunch of stuff, we can't find anyone to help us except the first lady, who couldn't read or type, who attempts to upload our information into the computer.
2:55 p.m. -- Lady returns with a printed out sheet that has none of the items we had scanned and one we had not and goes back to try to upload again.
2:58 p.m. -- Lady apologetically explains that our entire registry is lost. Rather than do it all again, we leave, quietly cursing the stupid lady who screwed up the whole thing.
3:05 p.m. -- Swing by the Auntie Anne's to grab a pretzel, but the line is too long and we are cranky.
3:20 p.m. -- Enter Bed Bath & Beyond. I get in line at the customer service desk while my fiance sits in the demo massage chair to rest his flat feet.
3:22 p.m. -- Listen to girl behind customer service desk try to figure out how to figure out tax by multiplying by a percentage. Guy standing at counter wrongly explains that she should multiply the amount by .8 or something. I consider stepping in but am afraid that in my semi-crankiness and tiredness I might end up either explaining it wrong or being mean, and, thankfully, a nice foreign lady steps in first.
3:24 p.m. -- Once foreign lady is done being taken care of and I ask where the registry is and am directed to the rear of the store.
3:25 p.m. -- My fiance tells me to try the massage chair, and it really does pep me up a bit.
3:28 p.m. -- Find registry area and fill out some more paperwork. Explain to Pam the registry lady that we don't need fine china or crystal; we just want everyday stuff. Pam is nice but kind of balks at the idea that we would have guests over and not have anything nice to serve them on, despite the fact that we tell her that right now we kind of need other things a lot more than fine china.
3:29 p.m. -- We choose a fine china pattern.
3:35 p.m. -- Pam helps us choose crystal and flatware to go with the china. It actually looks quite nice. I make my fiance pledge to have a fancy party soon after we get married so that we have a reason to use fine china and crystal.
3:50 p.m. -- Pam takes us over to the cookware section of the store to meet Josh, who she says will help us there, despite the fact that we have already chosen cookware at Macy's. Josh, who has laryngitis, explains that Pete will be helping us because he does not have laryngitis. Pete is not happy when we tell him we want copper bottom pots and steers us toward stainless steel. We tell him we have already registered at Macy's for copper bottom pots, and he pulls up the brand and tells us it is not as good as the brand we'd been looking at in his store. He's actually right, but we kind of want a chance to register for other stuff that we haven't looked at yet, so we run away from Pete and register for other stuff.
4:15 p.m. -- I make my fiance scan a plastic take-along snack container that looks like a goldfish cracker. This is one of my favorite items on the list so far.
6 p.m. -- After we've been through the entire store, Pam brings us snacks and tells us that we deserve a break. We tell her we're done.
6:15 p.m. -- Pam goes over some other registry stuff with us and tells us congratulations about 12 times. She's actually pretty nice, and I wonder if we should invite her to the wedding so that she can buy us that china with her employee discount.
6:20 p.m. -- We revisit our fine china setting, and I still like it, but I am kind of hoping that we get more of the every day dishes, because I really like them and don't have to have anyone over to use them, plus they are dishwasher safe.
6:30 p.m.-9 p.m. -- We finally leave Bed Bath & Beyond and, having given up any hope of making it to the grocery store and cooking dinner like we'd planned, we come home and order pizza and watch Mean Girls on TV.
9 p.m. - 10 p.m. -- Looking online, I learn that the dumb lady at Williams-Sonoma actually did upload our thing, and we do have a registry. In fact, we have two. One is empty and the other has the stuff we chose today.
10:27 p.m. -- My head hurts. I am going to bed.
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