Thursday, January 15, 2015

First World Problems

I recently redid my laundry room, so I was excited to see the Houzz article about laundry room ideas.  It's kinda like watching the real estate ads after you've bought your house.  There's not much you can do about it now, and yet we always look.

The article was a list.   Pet Showers (nope, I thought, I'm not washing a cat); drying racks (still have to get that installed); natural light, (classic basement laundry room, not relevant, wish it was); statement backsplashes (that would be nice); wine fridge, (ooohhh, wish I drank that much wine); and on the article went.  (For those who wish to salivate over laundry rooms and the houses they wished they had, click here. )

I started to read the comments section.  

One comment was just dripping with scorn.  "Talk about solutions to First World Problems!"
 
Good point I thought as I continued to scroll. 
 
And then it hit me.  I was on Houzz - its whole point and purpose is to solve first world problems. 
 
It is a place where when you are agonizing over whether you should put in granite, marble or composite counter tops in your guest's guest bathroom, you can ask millions of others around the world their opinion. 
 
And from what I've seen, they give you their advice frankly, in droves and lots of it.  (Which is why I haven't dared to try.)  Most of it on the paint colour you've chosen, the style of vanity and your mirror - all of which you clearly indicated that you loved and were not changing.  No matter, the mass opinion is against you and they tell you, that if it isn't too late, you should change all of it.  Judging by the fact that the picture you posted had the new vanity installed, the paint on the wall, and the mirror waiting to be hung, it is.  But no one bothered to read past the title which pleaded for "Help with my Bathroom."  So they are helping you with your bathroom - all of your bathroom.  Reading and processing information is apparently for those with time on their hands, like residents in a lower-income country.   
 
So, on an article about how to improve your laundry room, someone was sniffing about how irrelevant this was to broader world issues.  Yup.  It is. 
 
But then what were you expecting?  Why were you even on Houzz in the first place, if that's what you were wanting?  Were you Googling "How to include a washboard with your gift of goat?" and stumble on the article by mistake?  And who gave you permission to be the downer to those indulging in some escapism, on a website built just for that?  Situational awareness is a handy skill.   
 
Me? I'm already planning a renovation to my renovation.  I've given up on solving the world's problems today.  There's a new Houzz newsletter out, with an article about how to store all your stuff.  It looks like I need to buy new storage bins, baskets, and hooks. Ohhh, I can purchase by clicking on the links, so I don't even need to leave the house!  They'll deliver right to my front door.  
 
I'll tackle the world's problems tomorrow.  Maybe.  It looks like I have some re-organizing to do.
 
(By the way, you can send a washboard to a US soldier to use while on deployment to clean their clothes, www.columbuswashboard.com/, but not with a goat.) 
 
 

Exit Target Stage Left

That's it, they're gone!  Target announced this morning that they were closing all of their Canadian locations.  This is big news, about on par with when they announced that they were entering the Canadian market (stage right), and everyone freaked out.  My newsfeed was prompt, and so the news had just broken and the inevitable freaking out that Target was leaving (stage left) had not yet hit the "analytics" section of the news.

This is serious gossipy business news.  I want analysis.  I want to know! What went wrong?  Why couldn't it be fixed? What's going to happen to Sarah Richardson's home décor products for Target Canada?  It was supposed to be coming out "sometime in 2015", specifically and I was excitedly waiting to see just what a combination of snappy prints and cheap textiles (which was the only logical result of a Sarah Richardson collaboration with Target Canada) was going to look like.  Would I buy it, or would I shrug my shoulders and walk out?  Seemingly, a lot of people were shrugging their shoulders and walking out. How did Sarah, such a savvy business person, sign onto a sinking ship?

The bigger impact, of course, will be on the wider Canadian economy, the analysts will tell us.  The impact on Target is clear - they're running back to the U.S. with their tail between their legs, marking yet another retailer who just couldn't make it in the Canadian market.  My biggest fear right now is the impact it will have on Nordstrom's planned expansion into Canada, which has already been delayed by lessons-learned-to-date of the Target Canada fiasco.  Goodness knows what their executives are thinking now.
 
My local Holt's is in the middle of shutting down, and I was counting on Nordstrom's to fill the "shoe sale" void that is being created.  Will Nordstrom's rethink, or charge ahead?  Where will I get cheap expensive shoes, if they back out?  With two small children, are cheap expensive shoes practical?  If they're on the second mark-down section, maybe....  I have a pair of hot pink shoes that says maybe not.  But still.

And just what is happening with Sears?  Are they going to make it or not?  And if they don't, where am I going to find basics?  Sears provides a wide array of things that other retailers just don't provide under one roof.  I need children's shoes, a new blanket, vacuum bag refills, and thread.  Sears delivers.  Otherwise, I need to go to a gazillion stores.  Who wants to do that?  The problem is I go there about twice a year.  Clearly, customers like me are not going to help Sears survive.

But back to Target Canada, who didn't make it, and the wider impact.  Will new foreign stores try to break into the Canadian market?  Will they claim that they can succeed where Target failed?  Or will this just spook everyone?  Will the Canadian stores, who were supposed to be running scared of Target, dial the competition back down?

And perhaps, if we're dreaming about a rosy Canadian retail future, people will realise that Canadians are one savvy lot who like a good sale and who like to comparison shop.  As I recall, that's why Marks and Spencer's was said to have not made it.

Turns out we all like a good shoe sale, with selection and stock, that's, you know, available in-store, here, in Canada, not just in the US.

I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere for the next retailer.


Creativity in a Box

Your Kiwi Carte has shipped!!
 
What... oh no.... drat.
 
I was supposed to cancel that thing.
 
Drat.
 
Based on the rest of the internet, these five words send households across the  world into a fevered state of anticipation as they wait for the little green box to show up in their mailbox.  These poor children, though, have to continue to wait until their mother carefully takes a picture of the box, its contents, and blogs about it, before the children can actually rip it open and do it.  Then their neat and tidy results are carefully added to the blog.
 
Here, we just rip it open.  Then we kinda do it.  Then we leave the half-finished product lying around.
 
Which is why I was supposed to cancel it.
 
Our eldest son was showing clear signs of needing "more stimulation" and based on rave reviews everywhere, this seemed like a winner.  It was also supposed to be a good Mummy-son time, where I wouldn't constantly be saying no to my favourite toddler. 
 
So we signed up for the month-by-month subscription, just in case, because my husband thought we should be cautious.  I was ready to sign on for life "Look at all the money you save!"
 
The first box arrived, and my son was very excited.  He likes boxes in the mail.  Then he found that it didn't contain a book, and the excitement started to dial down.  "It's not from Amazon or Chapters, dear," I explained.  Then he found the pair of scissors (Kiwi gleefully says that you will need scissors in most of the crafts, so here's a pair of your own.) and started heading towards something to cut. His excitement started to dial up.  His own pair of scissors.  No one had ever suggested he have his own pair of scissors before.  And these were clearly his.  Mummy had just showed him how the box had his name on it.  
 
"NOOOOO." I shrieked.  "You can not cut the curtains!"
 
Not a good start. 
 
The first box was about dinosaurs.  First off was making yourself felt dinosaur feet and a head with pre cut-out feet and felt stickers.  I've never seen felt stickers.  They were cool.  There were triangles and circles.  The directions (all pictures to be kid-friendly) indicated that you carefully arranged these on the feet so that they matched and looked, well, organised.  My son ripped them off their backing sheet and stuck them on. 
 
"Errr, do you think this other foot might like some spots?" I asked.  "And how about we spread them out, so that the stickers aren't all on top of each other, like here, in the picture?" 
 
Blank stare. And then a vigorous head-shaking as he continued to build his sticker stack.
 
He finished sticking the stickers on.  Zero interest in putting horns on the head, or actually wearing the feet. 
 
And just like that, five minutes later, the craft was done.
 
Next up, was making imprints in clay of dinosaur bones.  This was going to be super neat.  We carefully put the stickers over top of the dinosaur outline, following the directions (phew), and got ready to put the clay over top to make the imprint.  Kiwi had warned that the clay could be very sticky, so I was prepared for it to be a little difficult.  My son was entranced with the brown clay.  I carefully made a ball and smoothed it over my dinosaur.  "See dear, if you do this, then you get the picture of the dinosaur on the back." 

He hopped down clutching his lump of brown clay and raced off to find his cooking equipment.  "Mummy, I'm making dinner!" he announced. 

I was too busy trying to pry the clay back off the dinosaur to pay attention.  "Look, a dinosaur imprint, well almost.  Let's try again.  I'll just get something to scrape this off and we..."

He came racing back with the brown clay in his saucepan, "Mummy, I cooked you waffles!"
 
Right.
 
I've come to the conclusion that the happy children online follow directions - in fact, they're happy following directions and having their craft project look like the picture.  They take time to do it "right" with the result that it takes longer than 7 minutes to "do" the whole box.  This allows their parents to feel smug about giving their children the opportunity to be creative and to feel as though it was money well spent.  This is the niche market of Kiwi Crate.
 
I, on the other hand, was left trying to jam my square peg of a son into the round hole of Kiwi instructions.  I was trying to force him to follow the instructions and "do it right", or even something approximating what I had just spent all this money on was supposed to look like. 
 
And since when had I become such an adult, that I was dead-set on following the instructions.  I mean, instructions for a child's craft that was supposed to encourage creativity, not crush it like a bug.
 
I don't even follow the instructions for Ikea. (According to my husband, it actually helps if you follow the Ikea instructions.) 
 
Oh right, when I paid $30 for something that my son declared "done" in 7 minutes.  When I vainly hoped that following the directions would make the dollar-per-second cost a little lower. 
 
When I hadn't already been notified that "Your Kiwi Crate has shipped!" when I was still vainly hoping that we might finish the previous one. And I don't mean finish like the picture.  I mean finish like we did something, anything at all, with it.
 
 
When a company wasn't sending my child dangerous weapons in the mail.  If you send scissors to a small child, you should send them to its adult in a separate envelope sealed with caution tape and a dangerous content sticker.  Anything less is just plain irresponsible.
 
Especially when you are encouraging the child to be creative.