In case you don't know, Bill loves warhammer...and every year his Christmas list has a few warhammer things on it (surprise, surprise!). I, being a loving wife, want to make him happy...so I buy something for his hobby every year. This is not a simple task...especially for someone like me, who doesn't know what they're really looking for. Yes, I have a list, but that doesn't really help...trust me! Whenever I walk into Games Workshop, I feel like I've just entered a foreign country where I don't know the language.
In case you are lucky, and have never had to enter this store, let me paint you a picture. Inside the store, there are models of great variety lining the walls...glass displays of painted models, and a couple of large playing tables. These tables are covered with "terrain", that is hills, walls, bunkers, trees, rocks...stuff like that...with lots of open space for opponents to place their precious models. Usually, standing around these tables, are two or more guys...rolling dice, measuring distances between models, and being very loud and talking in some strange language that I cannot understand ( I like to refer to it as "geek-speek"). They get so excited...I'm not sure why. Rolling dice to see if my guy can kill your guy, and measuring to see if he actually hit him...doesn't sound appealing to me, but you know, different strokes. Anyways, I never know where to look for the things on Bill's list. All the varieties look so similar to my un-trained eyes. This is one of the few stores where I actually enlist the help of an employee. I've given up actually looking around for an item on the list...I just go in, hand someone the list and ask if they have anything on it. It's sooooo much easier this way!
This year, Bill decided to try something different. Games Workshop online has a store where you can create a wish list and then send it to people. I guess he figured that it would save me from actually having to go into the scary store. I tried a few times to order from his list, but for some reason it wasn't working...and I was getting frustrated. When I told Bill about it, he suggested that I just print out the list and then go into the actual online store and do a search and order something that way. I tried. I suffered. I typed in an item, and it spit back a few dozen things that all sounded the same, and me being only about 2% warhammer geek, I couldn't figure out what it was that I needed! I was going to give up. I wanted to give up. Bill practically buys all the warhammer stuff he wants anyways...
I didn't give up. I took the list into the store. I suffered some more. (I'm sure you thing I'm exaggerating here, but you try it sometime and see!) Luckily there was a girl working there who said she could help me. (I was shocked to see a girl working there...she said that she's only one of about three girls working for games workshop in all of Canada) Anyways, I handed her my list and asked if they had any of that stuff in stock. Luckily, they had two models on the list, so I picked one and then got some paintbrushes to go with it...big sigh of relief...I did it, and Bill would be happy! (I hope he appreciates the sacrifices I make in order to even enter that store for him!)
Christmas morning...Bill opens his last gift...his box of toys. Even big kids need toys! There was a gamecube game, 2 computer games, and at the bottom, his warhammer model that I tried so long and hard to get for him. He opened it and got a strange look on his face...I could tell right away that he wasn't thrilled to see what I'd picked out...
me: "What's the matter? It was on your list..."
him: "It was??"
me: "Yeah, it was on the list."
him: "Are you sure?"
me: "I took your list into the store, and the girl gave that to me."
him: "She must've made a mistake, then."
me: "humpf...sorry...I have the receipt, you can just exchange it then."
I hope this is one of those times when "it's the thought that counts"...either that, or I tortured myself for nothing...
Next year send me out to do the deed. I may not play any more (I'm free, I'm free!) but I do speak the language. ;)
ReplyDeleteHey, Kim... I know this is long... but I wanted to show you something I wrote in my blog about a year ago that you might get a kick out of.
ReplyDeleteI was in a Games Workshop store recently talking to some guys about I forget what, when I overheard a conversation between some of the patrons and some of the staff. It was an animated conversation about how one of the Warhammer armies, named "Skaven" was created and came into the world. You see, there's this thing about a tower that some village was trying to build and then a stranger came to the village one day and said "I'll help you build the tower" and so they let him and when he did something bad happened and rats grew big and picked up weapons and started killing everyone. I kinda checked in and out of the conversation as it progressed, but what amazed me was the length of time that this conversation was spanning; it was a good 20 minute conversation about how Skaven came into the world. They then all joined into an animated discussion about who that mystery person who built the tower was. Could he have been this guy? That guy? The other guy? (The names escape me. Sorry). It was not a casual discussion... this was something these guys really cared about. This was something that they obviously gave a lot of thought to on those nights when they lie awake, staring at the darkness. I thought to myself "Is this how far these people are out of touch with reality? That they put this kind of thought and energy into wondering where non-existent rat people came into being and who was the other non-existent person who made it happen?" I felt a little weird being around this, so I left. I was a little worried that if I stayed there for too long that my own grasp on reality might start to dissolve, it was that serious.
I wandered next door to a hair salon that I frequent and looked for some new shampoo, of which I was in need. Now, as you can imagine if you have ever been in a hair salon, there was no shortage of hair products. I stood before the shelf which served my usual brand and started rifling through the bottles to find the shampoo. I found conditioner, which isn't really that exotic of a choice. I found leave-in conditioner, which is a bit more unusual, given that most people use a conditioner before they get out of the shower/bath/whatever. There was a styling gel, which was also nothing unsual. "Firm" and "light" varieties indicated the differing degrees of hold that each could offer. I also found styling gel for thick hair and for thinning hair. Ok, good enough. There was also styling cream, forming cream, pomade and sculpting cream. There was a product I forget the name of, the purpose of which was to make your hair shinier and one called "mud" that was intended to make it less shiny. If the mud wasn't interesting to you, there was also "clay" and "stucco". There was a finishing rinse, for when you were done washing and conditioning, as well as a product I couldn't quite get the hang of but appeared to be a sort of varnish that held your hair in place once you got it "just so". In addition I also saw several varieties of hair spray and no fewer (I kid you not) than five permutations of shampoo. This is all from the same company, by the way. I did a little quick math and realized that if I were to use all their products in one sitting that I would be putting roughly a gallon of product on my head every morning, would take ninety minutes to get ready to leave the house and could pay about $200 monthly in upkeep to make sure the products didn't run out. There were several posted advertisements which shockingly indicated that, yes... this is what they expected you to do.
At that moment I rethought my perspective that the nerds in Games Workshop were out of touch with reality. Though I didn't particularly care to waste my time trying to theorize on where the Skaven came from, I was definitely certain that a handful of shampoo, a handful of conditioner and a pea-sized blob of gel run through your hair is all the work a man should probably do on his coiffure before he goes out to greet the world.
I love that you made the effort babe. ;)
ReplyDeletethat makes it all worth it :)
ReplyDelete