Before You Register, You Should Know

Josh and I are getting married in two weeks, and I think it’s only appropriate to share this story with you before we tie the knot.

This is a three-part story. First, we travel to Macy's.

We walk in, bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to get that gun and start scanning! A very sweet foreign lady who doesn’t speak much English escorts us to a desk in the middle of the china.

30 MINUTES LATER, she is typing my last name for the third time, to get us signed up for our registry. I politely spell my name all three times, ‘that’s s-C-h…,’ as she hunts for each letter on the keyboard.

Josh's leg has started to twitch. I smile and put my hand on his knee. And then the lady can't find the period key on the keyboard. And I lose it. And I stand up, lean over the desk, and type the period myself. Done.

Being the sweet fiancée that I am, I let Josh hold the scanner gun, and we head to the kitchen section. We are quickly smacked in the face by the fact that we have nothing in common when it comes to decorating. Nothing.

At first, we are passive in how we tell each other. When one of us says 'Oh, I like that' and the other is silent, we move on. We decide to quickly scan anything that we both like. After 15 minutes, we are not so passive. ‘Fight in aisle 3, everyone.’

We decide to move on to Target and finish Macy's another day. But before we can leave, our sweet little foreign assistant absolutely insists that she needs to print out a copy of our registry for us to take.

Bless her heart; the woman has no computer skills. As she fumbles around to print it out, and multiple copies of pages 1 and 2 of our 5-page registry are shooting out of the printer, Josh quietly scoots around to a self help kiosk and prints off our registry on the first try. We thank her and back away, slowly, until she's out of sight.

Things we learned at Macy's:

1. We both like the color gray

2. Josh loathes teal

3. Registering is a lot more stressful than we thought.

Part Two: Target

Out of the four registry kiosks at Target, one says it needs service, one is completely dead, one touch screen won't work, and one is fine. We go for the 'fine' one, and begin. After we've put in all our info, there is no submit button and it closes, without saving. Fail. Now we have to interact with an employee.

Luckily, the girl wants nothing to do with us; her mere presence seems to fix the machine, and soon enough, we are skipping along with another scanner.

Fairly uneventful, you say?

Part Three: Bed, Bath, and Beyond

We walk in on a Saturday, with an hour before we have to be somewhere. Ha! We’ve tricked them this time. We’ll just tell them we’re in a hurry, and they’ll give us the gun, and we’ll scan, and we’ll leave.

Looking back, I’m convinced they sit around dreaming up ways to terrify newly engaged couples. Maybe it’s some sort of initiation. Like joining a sorority. They pounce when they see you walking towards the china room (why do new couples even need china?!), where the registry desk is so strategically placed.

They smile when we walk in. I swear I heard them evilly laugh. They take our information. Why can no one seem to type my name when I spell it out? And what is so hard about setting our password as our wedding date? So very many questions run through my head.

My personal favorite part (at least while we were still sitting at the desk) is when they try to convince Josh that he should register for luggage.

Josh.

Mr. ‘I’m an elite traveler with every airline.’

Mr. ‘I get to hang out in the fancy lounges at the airport…would you like to come as my guest?’

I just shake my head and sit back for that one. She asked us if we’d like to browse through the luggage catalog. We politely decline. She insists every new couple needs luggage. I chuckle; Josh says ‘no thank you.’

Her boss says ‘No really, you should at least look, we’re running specials.’

Josh bursts out, ‘I travel 200 days a year. We’re SET with luggage, thankyouverymuch!’

(Sidenote: Josh’s luggage broke after we registered. I wonder if they hired someone to break it? I’m looking into it.)

They have now unlocked the scanner from its safety deposit box, and we can see it. They start to hand it over… But first she’d like to give us a tour of the store.

I’m fully convinced she’s going to lead us around the store to scan items for us. She swears she just wants to give us a tour, and after fighting that fight for about 5 minutes, Josh agrees to a tour if he can carry the scanner.

Only he didn’t experience the ‘tour’; he left me out to dry. He scanned things like a breathilizer and poker chips, while I was forced to listen. And when I turned around and said ‘Hey!’ to him, the lady scolded me! ‘Just let him go. It’s his registry to you know.’ And she touched my arm!

Finally, FINALLY, she leaves. But every once in awhile she pops up just around the corner. I am very jumpy at this point. I’m scared. We start ducking behind corners, and peeking around before moving aisles. It’s all very unsettling.

When we’re done, we hide behind a corner, watching the registration desk. We wait until they lure another unsuspecting couple in, and quickly throw the gun on the desk. And RUN!

We finished registering online. Their website is very user-friendly.

And we canceled the Macy’s registry. Who needs fancy stuff anyway?