Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Kids are filthy: My trip to a LEGO store



I'm beginning to feel better after a nearly three day long illness of some sort knocked me on my ass... as far as I know, it wasn't the swine flu. There were no stomach or intestinal issues, the only nausea being related to the bad equilibrium from sinus problems. Looking back, there is only one thing we both did this weekend that fits the time table of infection: we went to a LEGO store in a North Carolina mall.

well, what does that have to do with getting sick?- you might ask.

The answer is simple: Kids are filthy little screaming petri dishes of germ breeding sugars. Throw in some staph from bad hygiene and viola!




On that innocent night, where I finally got to go to a lego store for the first time in my life, I actually chuckled at the bottles of hand sanitizer on some of the counters inside...mocked the job of spraying down one of the activity rooms with disinfectant and bleach solution- as we saw one employee do.

But it becomes hard to laugh when your throat can barely swallow, and your body is shivering and sweating simultaneously.
For the rest of this rant however, let's just accept the fact that your average lego store is probably equal to a major hospital for the amount of germs spread on the products and then mutated from the over-use of sanitizers. For the rest of the blog I just want to express how disappointing the lego store is, for any of you considering a trip out of your way.

check this out- it looks awesome, right? rows and rows of every lego of every color...


not so fast! look closer. the top three rows are unavailable- that is, they are just repeats of parts below, and are not open to scoop from- in other words, fake and visually deceiving- making the wall appear grander than it is.
secondly, the parts made available are some of the lamest, most common parts to any set.. tires, thin flats, etc- and others that simply just don't deem being so available: little white blocks with an eye painted on them? Dogs? (yes, I bought two dogs, but I digress). No hard to find or multi-useful shapes.

At the 'build your own minifig' table, one finds literally three torsos, three types of legs and maybe 5 different heads and occupational hats or hair. Which I guess is fine if you are a child with no imagination and content with settling for a race car driver, mechanic or fireman.
Guess I will have to keep shopping the most fully stocked, germ free and best priced Lego store of them all: eBay.

3 comments:

  1. I went to Berlin's indoor legoland a few times this year and was just as disappointed.

    The lego website will sell you any individual tile available, but I had had no idea what "every single tile available" is not actually very many different sorts of tiles at all, at any one point in time.

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  2. Lego is shit now anyways. I remember back in the day (I'm only 15, but roll with it) when there were no skin coloured minifigs, and all the faces were either the classic smileys, or a slight variation which looked cool. Now each figure has a different and equally as horrific face as the last, and the new colours and shapes of the blocks just make me sick. Why, instead of making some new different blocks for the truck, make one big block shaped as the bloody truck!?

    I can't look at the lego website now, it just angers up my blood.

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  3. The pick a brick wall is a lot like thrifting, to tie in to your Goodwill post above. I live really close to one and my local Lego-heads keep the mailling list fairly updated when we see new and interesting parts...so we can all descend and clean it out. :p

    And if you're looking for brick, Brick Link is the place to search.

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