I had a creepy feeling years ago while shopping in a
grocery store. I was hungry in an, I don’t know what I want to eat kind of
mood. I decided to take my time perusing
the shelves to see what would satisfy my appetite. The eerie sensation began shortly after I
stepped into the aisle. I noticed a store
worker following me. I couldn’t help
but notice because at just a foot behind me, I literally felt his breath on my
back.
I’d heard of people being followed in a tiny grocery store. I’d seen TV reports and read
newspaper accounts of numerous districts in turmoil. Locals living with a relentless daily sense of
interlopers profiteering among them, the disenfranchised. That and culture shock on both sides created a
decade long perfect storm of dispute, ill will and even boycotts. The hallmark of this tension was people, in
their own community, being followed in every corner grocery store. I’d had a righteous but abstract indignation
about the whole controversy until it happened to me.
I turned and the face that stared back at me made no
move to hide that he was just doing his job, following me. That’s when it felt,
just down right creepy. So instead of
looking for something to eat, I decided to just keep walking around until my
shadow got tired. After three tandem
laps around the two aisles store, I realized he saw me as his ticket to
So I left without
a purchase as I navigated competing feelings of increasing hunger and creeped-out-ness.
That was then.
In store creepiness has reached a new level. This is now:
‘Mannequins Spy On Shoppers”
The $5,130 Eye See Mannequin has cameras for
eyes and software for brains - the better to record shoppers. I’m talking sophisticated data collection
here. How many people look at displays
and for how long, including race, age and gender. Now of course my comedy mind races to find a
tattletale, “I’m not your grandma’s dummy", dummy and spend the entire day donning
various guises, changing ethnic and sexual orientation cues.
Ladies and gentlemen I’m a
college graduate and that is my idea of a fun day, trying to get a rise out of
an inanimate object. At this point you may insert YOUR OWN sex
in marriage joke!
Almax Research & Development will soon (if not
already) employ technology enabling spy mannequins to RECORD YOUR
CONVERSATIONS about the objects on display!!!
To assurances that all data collected is not maintained or used for other than marketing/advertising purposes;
I say “Yeah,
(sarcastic tone) right!” This
millionth example of everyday surveillance now ruins window shopping /store browsing
with a friend my penultimate pastime, second only to an hour deep tissue
massage with mani/pedi.
Never again will I share intimacies or even recipes
on a shopping trip.
Because a nearby mannequin will record my reaction to a ridiculous trendy out fit and the next thing I know I’m confronted with high tech digital recordings of my off hand remarks about
the bull shit sequester, killer drone attacks, insidious racial profiling, economy
debilitating multiple non-budgeted wars… Wait a minute. All that can be found weekly right here on
this site!
(In my Emily Litella voice)
NEVER
MIND!!
Haha So funny that you walked around until your shadow got tired! I can always spot them out. That would make a funny candid camera. Wow I did not know that the mannequins are playing candid camera. Damn those anatomically incorrect nippleless wooden dummies. Big brother is watching.
Rhonda that's so funny! We're so worried about "Big Brother" meanwhile we're telling all onstage, in our blogs and on social media. Very, very funny!
Life here today is a lot like the science fiction of yesterday. Lisa, I know it seems like we tell all, but we still choose what we will put out there.
surveillance in this elite-inspired & contrived climate of fear means the loss of privacy. ultimately so the richest could justify our dependence on this increasingly unhealthy economy. Rhonda thanks for pointing out the contradictions. It reminds me to challenge every headline.
Very funny!
I think you are a smart shopper. And you can express your humor through funny ringtones.