9) The fact that you will always take a catalogue away with you, even though you never look at it. It will live on your coffee table for three days until you quietly retire it to the recycling bin.
8) The weird, social-services-waiting-area seating. To be avoided. Argos only keeps you waiting a few minutes so for God’s sake remain standing. Plonking your rear end on one of those seats is a fast-track to a Ribena-stained posterior.
Plus the rows are too close together and it can all feel a bit uncomfortable, especially in edgier urban areas where the difference between a three-minute wait and a four-minute wait is all that stands between certain punters waiting quietly and going postal with a “shank”.
7) The pencils. Apart from artists’ studios, Argos is the last place on Earth where pencils still reign supreme. Someone must go round sharpening at night when the store is closed. The share price would constantly be soaring if it wasn’t for the cost of those bloody pencils. Why not pens? No sharpening required.
6) The tendonitis you will leave the shop with after “flicking” through the gigantic laminated catalogues. Example: you go in looking for something to clean your camera with – at first you look under “lens” in the index, then “camera”, then “cleaner”, then under video cameras and digital cameras and… The next thing you know, you are forced to just leave the shop, your numb arms hanging limply by your side like an orangutang.
5) While checking out the catalogue, your uncomfortably close proximity to the catalogue-botherer standing next to you.
4) The unfeasibly large warehouse they must have out the back to be able to stock 2,000 pages’ worth of merchandise. Said warehouse’s capacity never seems to correspond with the size of the building as seen from outside. How can a shop with a back room the size of Heathrow Terminal One be the same size as the humble Shoe Zone and Thornton’s either side of it?
3) The weirdly long receipts. At least 30cm. Never used to happen.
2) The alphabeticised bays – A, B, C etc – where you are supposed to collect your items. Once your number gets called, it’s a free for all and you head to whoever looks like they might be ready to help you.
1) Your guilt at not ticking the “donate 20p to charity” box. And that nagging feeling that the cashier is looking down at your slip and thinking: “He didn’t tick the 20p box? Wtf I have NEVER seen that before. What a parasite.”
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