Children run through the store intrigued by the gadgets, office-manager types justify to their wives why they need an underwater-scooter, a salesman hawks a foam mattress to a grandma. I am in Brookstone. I get a text, I take out my phone and read the text. Suddenly a clean-shaven, baby-blue pinstriped-white-collared shirted Brookstone salesman charges towards me.
“Excuse me! We DO NOT ALLOW PERMIT CONDONE photography or videos of any sort inside our property!!”.
Startled, I stared right at him charging in my direction like the ubiquitous deer caught in headlights. As I started to form the words “I’m reading my text” I realized this middle-aged Brookstone salesman is, well, a middle-aged salesman at Brookstone. “OK” was all I could muster. Looking straight in front of me, I wondered what Salesman must have done or not done to be stuck working sales at Brookstone and…. A wall full of vibrators!!! Right there in front of me, a wall decorated with the latest in vibration sensations in beige, purple pink and mauve… Do we really need a color named mauve? With sterile sanitized family-friendly child-resistent marketing names like Soraya, Alia, Gigi (clever play on it’s specific G-spot hitting design), etc.
Now I get it, NO PHOTOS!! This family-friendly, Disney-esque squeaky-clean corporate retailer smack in the middle of a rated-G mall peddles VIBRATING DILDOS!!!
A quick lookup of the owner of Brookstone, and I get it, Bain Capital. The very company Mitt Romney started and only wants you to see what he wants you to see but not have photographs for it’s evidentiary properties…
Seriously, a WALL of VIBRATORS!! OK, “Personal Massager”, “Smart Wands”… WTF has hypocrisy turned this country into?
Disclaimer: I did not take the above photo. Thank you to anonymous for sending it to me to pair with this observation article.