Sunday, November 30, 2008

THE POTTERY BARN SUCKS.....or how the Chinese stole Christmas....


So I convinced the neighbor to get up early today......in the cold and the rain.....and go with me to a "Decorating Class" at our local Pottery Barn. Being a good sport she went along with it but I'm sure 10 minutes into the "class" she would have liked to kill me. Now I've been snookered by these folks in the past with their attempt to teach people how to better improve their living arrangements. I swore I would never go back after the last time as the class is truly LAME........this time I got an e-mail stating that they had gotten together with an editor of Real Simple magazine to put on a presentation you would be stupid to miss....Call me dumb, I interpreted the e-mail to mean that an actual person from the magazine would be at the store and give us good info.....maybe a free copy of the magazine.....Hey, when you get me up out of bed on a Sunday morning in the rain I expect some sort of "free goodie".....I could have stayed home and watched the Home Shopping Network because it was nothing more then a big sales pitch......No one from Real Simple just 2 salespeople from P.B. who tried to hawk their Reindeer collection of holiday crap.... Now, I wasn't the only moron in the place, there had to have been 50 women or more who looked shocked after 35 minutes when they handed out our "Goodie Bags" to find 4 paper recipe cards from the magazine and a 10% off coupon......How lame? Very, because the day before I received a 20% off coupon via e-mail....The hour class was reduced to a bit more then a half hour, no one had any questions and the store manager, although very peppy and excited that so many people had showed up, couldn't have revived this group if Tom Selleck showed up to feed us Krispy Kreme doughnuts....


I made my small purchase of a velvet Christmas stocking.....I wasn't about to not use that coupon....and we proceeded on to do further shopping and ofcourse have lunch....At one of my favorite's, Williams Sonoma I picked up a few things for daughter including a cool pair of kitchen shears from Kuhn Rikon of Switzerland....on to LeMadleine for our French lunch......then one more stop of the day.....I picked up for Miss Sophie an adorable "Steiff" horse, you know with the button in the ear. I thought it would be great to bribe her at the airport in 3 weeks so she thinks we're the favorite grandparents.....Ever since we visited Germany in the early 70's I have been a fan of Steiff and although they now make this cheaper version they still are cute......


Okay, I'm home now with my stash and I start unloading the bags to show the Boss what I found....He too likes Steiff so he immediately said "Did they have any more, maybe we should go back and get another"......pulling up the Steiff site on the Internet he tries to find the horse by it's name and asks me to read the name off the famous yellow tag.......No name....just Steiff....this is very unusual, they always have some sort of cute name for all their animals......Upon further inspection (like the back of the tiny tag in it's ear) what do I read......Yes, you guessed it......Made in China......totally disappointed we decide to keep it anyway because it is cute and the price wasn't bad....Then out of the W.S. bag comes the kitchen shears, remember they came from Switzerland......Oh, no they didn't.......Made in China......you have to be kidding. It says right smack dab on the label Kuhn Rikon Switzerland. Nope China......okay, I'm getting kind of tee'd off by now. One more thing to go.....The beautiful velvet stocking.....CHINA........ I don't know about you folks but am I the only one that thinks this is getting out of hand....I will be truly disappointed the day I find out that Tom Selleck isn't an American that he was really born in China.........

17 comments:

Salmagundi said...

We have our little rants around here about China manufacturing everything! That's probably part of the reason for our economic woes. Sorry, about the Pottery Barn experience. Hope a French lunch made it worthwhile. Take care, Sally

Country Girl said...

Oh, now you're scarin' me! But Tom Selleck was born 1945, in Detroit, Michigan. Thank God.
Ok. Now I can breathe easier.
And what is up with that Pottery Barn/Wms. Sonoma crap? I am so sorry it happened to you!

nikkicrumpet said...

LOL don't be raining on my Tom Selleck parade...he is all AMERICAN and if not...I DON'T WANT TO KNOW! Sorry about the PB debacle....they still have cool stuff though!

Neabear said...

What an experience! You did enjoy the lunch though, right?

Cindy said...

I still think this country would be in a better state if we actually made things here and not in China!

I love Tom Selleck and is it just me or is he getting better looking the older he gets?

Sue said...

Hi Guys....yes, the lunch was great as usual, LeMadeleine never disapoints. We had something called "Chicken Friand"...chicken inside puff pastry with a mushroom cream sauce...lemon tart for dessert! Being an ex-instructor for decoraters in a past life I have no patience for people that can't give a good presentation. That's just me, although Necie wasn't impressed either....And yes!!! Tom Selleck is getting better looking with age...

Anonymous said...

Wow - I always get those emails from PB but I've never gone. As a matter of fact I haven't even seen the new and improved PB at Lenox! Is it fabulous? I guess I basically only go to the thrift stores, TJ Maxx and the Ballard outlet!

Manuela

Donna said...

You make me laugh, Sue. How funny. And yes, I think China is taking us over! It's hard to find anything NOT made in China.

Penny from Enjoying The Simple Things said...

OH! What a bummer! I would have been upset about PB too. I know it is almost impossible to find anything not made in China today!

Cheryl said...

How upsetting! I hope you didn't have to pay for it, I would have ask for my money back (ok, no I wouldn't) but still upsetting. I agree with you on the China thing. I think everything in my house is from Japan or China. My DH and I were discussing this a couple weeks back and we should stop buying there stuff. I'm sure there is alot more to it but enough is enough already!
Cheryl

Liz Harrell said...

This post was hilarious. And oh Tom... what a cute cute man.

Thanks for the tip on the Pottery Barn class, I've seen ads for that and pondered attending. Now I'll spend my time doing something worthwhile, not getting a sales pitch.

Laura @ the shorehouse. said...

You're hysterical. That is really, really shady of PB and if I were you, they'd be getting a little letter. I'm a big fan of the anti-fan letter. :-) I'm signed up for a similar hoo-ha next week at a very fancy Wiliams Sonoma in NYC...and if they screw up you can guarantee it will be on my blog, too, LOL!

And...our country has borrowed so much money from China, we'll be buying Made in China for the rest of our ever-lovin' lives. They own our behinds. We were just too busy buying million dollar homes and gas guzzling monster SUVs to notice it happening. Sigh...Maybe Magnum P.I. can save the day! ;-)

Tami said...

Thank you for this post. Every time I get an email for Pottery Barn for a class, I want to go. Badly. However, the nearest Pottery Barn is a two hour drive. And when I am going to the city the classes aren't offered.
So, I am thrilled to hear about a first hand class
experience and I will stay home.

Linda Lou said...

I was going to go to the same decorating class this past Sunday at our Pottery Barn, glad I didn't go, but I did go to a Williams Sonoma decorating class at a local new home development....speaking of Mr. Selleck-I was so in love with him in the 80s - I went to see him play volleyball with the US Olympic team in San Diego-he still makes my heart go pitter patter

beachy in the burbs said...

Sue, that stinks aboout the Pottery Barn class! I've gotten emails about their classes & had thought about going. Am so glad I didn't now!

Sue said...

I feel bad that so many of you knew about the P.B. classes and now won't go...on the other hand I not only have been to about 4 of these things and all 4 times different employees gave the class,so it's a pattern of bad planning.... I also spoke to their coordinator at their corporate Hdq. to give suggestions to make it a better presentation and they ignored me....I felt qualified to do that because this used to be my job...I was an instructor for new decorators and I always had the people on the edge of their seats!! Not really but I could make a room of 200 laugh....I'm glad your taking my advise...stay home.

The Style Sisters said...

You are so funny! Loved this post! Tommy boy...he is one cute man. I remember when my mom and her friend first saw him on a gigantic ad for Marlboro. Yep he was the marlboro man for awhile. Hot stuff