| rev:text
| - My mother was the one who told me about Total Wine & More. I was bragging to her about my recent BevMo purchase, and she quickly set me straight.
When I first arrived at Total Wine, I thought it totally looked like Trader Joes. Inside, the place was HOPPING - people were everywhere, and there was every kind of wine and liquor imaginable there. It was awesome.
There was a tasting center at the back that I didn't take part in, though it looked like when you tasted something you got a coupon or something to purchase that wine at a discount.
I was surprised to see such a range of wines - $100 and then a couple of bottles over, $4.99. I really like the way the store is laid out, and I want to go back soon when I really have the time to peruse the entire store more thoughtfully.
I was on a mission during this visit: Find Effen vodka. I was introduced to Effen by my friend whose boyfriend is a distributor for Effen. At Safeway it's locked behind a glass case, and they make me feel like a criminal when I ask for it. Actually, they make me feel like I'm a 12 year old criminal. The checkout person actually has a look of glee when I walk up with the bottle, like he/she is poised and ready to say, "gotcha!" when they assume I can't produce ID ... which I always can. Holy cow, I'll be 30 in June. Anyway, back to Total Wine.
I was standing in front of the INSANELY LARGE selection of vodka, spied Effen, noted the FABULOUS price ($22 a bottle vs Safeway's $34 a bottle), and then one of the clerks breezed past me and said, "Try the Raspberry. You won't be sorry."
I had previously had the Black Cherry (in addition to the regular plain one), but oooh, Raspberry?? And it had a hint of vanilla. Plus, the silvery packaging had me sold. I grabbed a bottle of the plain and a bottle of the Raspberry plus some tonic and soda and hit the checkout.
This is where things got a little funky.
The woman in front of me had a few coupons with her from their grand opening advertisement. Her total was over $100, but if she hit $150 she would get to use an even better coupon. She also had a taster's coupon from the tasting bar at the back of the store. Apparently, the checkout girl rang in the taster coupon incorrectly, so when the customer wanted to add 3 bottles of wine to hit the $150 mark, the computer system was having issues.
The manager comes over, and, to be honest, the man needed, well ... a glass of wine! He was stressed to the MAX (it seemed), and he was close to berating his employee. He made the whole ordeal out to be such a DRAMA ... The customer in front of me having the issue (a lovely woman) checked out my goods and rifled through her paperwork until she came up with a coupon that I could use (an apology for the wait).
FINALLY, they got her on her way, and then it's my turn. The manager is still at the helm, and he takes one look at me and (with a smirk) says, "I'm going to need to see some ID." I have it ready to go. I'm used to this. "Oh, wow!" he exclaims.
"Yeah," I say. "It's kind of nice I guess that I'm nearing 30 and I can't seem to pass for 21. I'm not complaining though."
He rings me up and I notice my bill is barely over $50 ... and that's with tax. My coupon is for $5 off a spirit purchase of $50 or more. He's not going to be able to accept the coupon.
I ask anyway.
"No, I can't ..." he starts to say. Then maybe he realizes I was waiting in line for about 10 minutes (Really, 10 minutes. Do you know how long 10 minutes is? It's a really long time. Stand up and wait for 10 minutes. I'll bet you'll get bored and stop.). He decides to override the system and give me my $5 off coupon.
On the drive home I call 3 friends to tell them about this place, so checkout ordeal or not, I'm thrilled to have visited and intend to return.
Oh, and the Raspberry Effen is really good. :-)
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)