What do consumers want? This all important question remains a mystery as local city commissioners put a hold on a $70,000 consumer survey to find out what retail stores interest John and Jane Q. Public.
If anyone wants to know where consumers are spending their money, experience the Wal-Mart parking lot on any given Saturday or Sunday afternoon. It’s packed tighter than New York City’s mass transit system during rush hour. Never been to NYC? Go to Wal-Mart on a Saturday or Sunday and you’ve experienced mass transit.
City commissioners, listen up. In doing my part to help save the city $70,000, here is my list (free of charge) of retail stores I would like to see open in Shawnee (in no particular order):
A pleasant afternoon browsing through millions of books and magazines at a Barnes and Noble or a Hastings Bookstore is my idea of heaven, especially if I can have a cup of coffee and a scone while doing so. You would probably never hear from me again.
Macy’s. I would give my first-born male child for a Macy’s here in town. Okay, so my child is a sulky, know-it-all teen-ager. That makes the giving away part a bit easier.
At Super Target, their specialty bakery is to die for. Speaking of baked goods, why does it seem to be high treason or at least blasphemous to open a donut shop on Sundays? I’m sure God would love a gooey jelly-filled donut after a morning of sermonizing.
Garden Ridge, that most holy of post-Christmas temples, takes bargain shopping to a whole new level when prices are slashed in half and then half again, especially on that elephant foot coffee table with the painted pink toenails.
And just for the fun of it, let’s go with a Toys R Us because I like to watch apparently naïve parents shop with their young children and try to keep what they’re buying a secret. The ensuing temper tantrums really do make me appreciate having a teenager in the house.
I’ve done my part to save the city money, now let’s see if city commissioners know how to listen to a real consumer, okay, a shopaholic with a penchant for ugly coffee tables. Which reminds me, I’ve got some shopping to do. Anyone know where I can find a 17 piece two-sided metric conversion thingy here in Shawnee?
Patti Marshall,
Shawnee
