Shelly needs to replace her cell phone with a tri-band GSM model that we can use while we're in France, so we did some research, created a short list of candidates, which included phones with everything from built-in digital cameras to MP3 players, and then shortened that list to include the only phone on the list that we could get for free. In order to get the phone for free she has to get a new plan and order it off the Web. So we decided instead to go to the AT&T kiosk in the mall and pay $50 for the phone. We walked up, Shelly told the salesman we needed to upgrade to a GSM phone, pointed at the exact phone we wanted in the display case and said, "I wan't this one."

Speaking of manuals, I don't even need them; when I assembled my weight set my first step was to scratch out step 1 in the manual and replace it with "Throw out manual," and then I assembled the weight set in a configuration that I decided would be optimal for my strength building needs. The end result is that my back is now completely useless, but I can now use my eyelids to lift heavy objects.

Shelly and I left the kiosk empty handed. Those guys didn't know shit. I could understand that if you worked at Best Buy and were required to know the technical features and merits of a range of products, from DVD players to flatbed scanners, but if you work in a kiosk that sells 10 variants of the same product, not knowing accurate technical features of each of those products is pretty fucking inexcusable.