Adventures In Registry, Part I

Why registering hasn't been made into a horror movie yet is beyond me.

Or maybe I just hate shopping more than the average bear.

In any case, yes, we went a-registering today. (Why we're registering 18 months before we get married is also beyond me. This you will have to take up with my future husband, who lobbied for the trip.)

Our first stop, at the state's only Crate & Barrel, was fairly uneventful, though I might say fairly stressful if you a) don't feel particularly moved by variations on the white plate or b) are terrified of turning quickly and knocking over a whole display of glassware. Not that that applies to anyone here.

(Though I will say this: whoever invented those zapper gun thingies is a genius. It definitely kept at least my boy interested amid an endless parade of glassware.)

Our second stop was a lineny/beddy-type store mentioned in Team America: World Police's hit song, "America, Fuck Yeah." This is where I'd set our horror movie.

I am a big fan of this store. I've moved five times in the 3.5 years since college, so I've spent quite a bit of time in the chain's various tristate locations, nearly exhausting a supply of 20 percent off coupons. I thought I knew what I was in for.

Enter the registry guy. I'll call him Lloyd.

At first Lloyd seemed like an annoyed salesperson, fulfilling his duties to act interested in the engaged couple. After taking care of some technical issues, he launched into the obligatory "congratulations!" (is every wedding-related vendor obligated to begin every conversation that way? I don't think my dad has even used that word yet). I sort of felt bad for wasting his time and was fully prepared to nod my head until he gave us the scanner gun and let us zap items at our leisure.

Instead, Lloyd suddenly launched into guilt-trip wedding planner mode. For a non-Jewish, non-woman, he was mighty impressive. First he wanted to know our wedding date.

Me: We don't have one yet.
Lloyd: [Looks befuddled.]
Me: We haven't set the date. We haven't found a place yet. Can we just say the month?
Lloyd: Most people have a wedding date. That's like the first thing people do.
Me: Well, uh, we want to find a place first and then set it.
Lloyd: Ok but the computer needs a date.
Me: Can we just make one up?
Lloyd: You will need to update it as soon as possible. Because your guests will look at the registry and see the date and need to know.
[Note to potential guests: If you do not receive an invitation by sometime in the middle of 2009, you are not invited. Don't go looking at our registry for wedding info.]

We solve that bit by agreeing to a fake wedding date. Peace restored.

But only until he asks about China. Do you need information about China?
No, we say. We're not interested.
What, he asks, you're getting it from your parents?
No, we say; we don't need China.

Awkward pause.

I won't get into our other conversations with Lloyd, about such topics as the small notes you can include in your invitations to inform your unsuspecting guests where you registered (we refused them) and which brands of knives were preferable. Or the unfortunate combination of a registry that asks too many questions (like parents' names) and a family like ours, which appears to result in a registry in which every single word (including our home address) is spelled wrong. Look for us under Baker-Harisan.

So we were off, zapper gun in hand, to conquer the world of cutting boards and duvet covers and neck pillows.

But sure enough, every 10 minutes or so, Lloyd popped up. Are you not buying gadgets? he'd wonder. What about glasses? He did this under the guise of giving us back a new, corrected printout of our registry, though each one had more errors, which I think was just a pretense for coming back to nag further. What about bakingware? Have you considered that?

Anyway, I say all this not to pick on Lloyd, who I'm sure was just doing his job per company policy. It's just that I now have images of a slightly disapproving salesman jumping from behind every Pyrex display, ready to pepper us with questions about whether we've considered the latest in bed skirts.