Holy Heck.
On the urging of my brother, we checked out HH Gregg a while back.
We were curious. It looked.....weird. Maybe it was their signage. Or the clunky name, which turns ou is an amalgam of family names.
Once we were inside, we quickly realized we may have stumbled upon a cult hiding behind the guise of a wholesale store. And as soon as the doors slid shut behind us, much like a carnival funhouse ride we were locked in for the walk through. There was no turning back.
We instinctively (I kid you not) inched closer to each other as we tried to pick up the pace. The place was so spacious and bright, and it housed the most random selection of products divided into "pods" throughout the store.
Treadmills to the left and recliners to the right welcomed us on the beginning of our Willie Wonka journey. Had an Oompa Loompa jumped out and started singing to us I would not have been surprised in the least. I actually may have welcomed the singing, as the din from the extreme selling going on up ahead made it difficult to think.
Suddenly a small hoard (yes, hoard, because it's a negative term and accurately describes the scene) of matchy-matchy sales drones floated our way from all directions, encroaching on our personal space with a cacophany of "Welcome to HH Gregg, can I help you find anything?"
I'm pretty sure we didn't look like we needed help finding anything other than the quickest way out of CreepyWorld. Perhaps the apprehension and bewilderment on our faces were mistaken for questioning. Who knows.
Whatever the case, they wouldn't stop coming. It was like the Walking Dead zombies had donned matching polo shirts, kahkis, and horrible, horrible pasty evil clown smiles, the promise of many bad things to come were we to stay a minute longer in this house of horrors.
There was one young man who followed us from afar on our entire, very LONG three minute HH Gregg excursion. I'm convinced he was assigned to us, observe us, record our weaknesses (me - memory foam mattresses, my brother - 72 inch flatscreens) and use them against us before we were able to escape to the safety of the parking lot.
Oh yes, let's visit the mattress room, shall we? It was a separate room off of the far right corner, the promise of pillow top sleep and layaway luring unsuspecting humans into its evil depths, where weary people seeking the comfort of a good nights sleep go to disappear...
As I sat down on a memory foam (my weakness, remember) a look of panic crossed my brother's face. I've seen this expression before - when my mom was about to run over his Chewbaca action figure. It's not a face I like to see (it kind of bums me out, truth be told) and I knew what had to be done.
I jumped up, made up an excuse, beelined it out of the mattress room and stepped it up towards the front doors - the promise of freedom.
We could feel all matchy-matchy eyes on us, and I wondered what trick they would play, what trap they had in store for us as we speedwalked towards the exit. We agreed, under our breath, not to look back or make eye contact with anyone and if one of us fell behind, the other should JUST KEEP GOING, GET OUT AND GET HELP!
As the large automatic doors (obviously the matchy-matchys aren't too bright or they would've had manual doors) slid open and the cool night air hit our faces, we knew we'd made it to safety. Once in the parking lot, we weren't very quiet about how relieved we were with our escape. We could not peel out of the parking lot fast enough.
As the bright lights of HH Gregg grew smaller and smaller in my review mirror, I realized just how attractive and seductive consumerism can be. And how creepy the whole experience can feel. I also realized how much fun my brother and I have together, and how thankful I am to spend time with him.
Sure, to many the facade is appealing - large balloons pepper the parking lot, the signage is bright and seemingly innocuous, but once inside it's an altogether different feeling.
Is HH Gregg a haven for Scientology expats who couldn't cut it with the aliens but still yearned for world domination? Perhaps. Is this "megawholesale store" a cover for a Jim Jones-type operation, using fridges and flat screens and batteries as flashy, modern-day candy to lure the masses into a Heaven's Gate operation? Probably not.
But I will tell you this. The whole thing felt creepy, and I'm stickin to it.
My loyalty will now, and forever be, with Target.
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