12/23/2011

I’m about to go to Cool Ridge today or tomorrow for a holiday gift for my brother because it’s the only place in the area that I know of (I don’t live here, I’m only visiting) where I can get what he wants. But 1 star is for agreeing with the other commenter–they treat paying customers like criminals. I have had only one experience with Coolridge and here’s how it went.

I had just left the clinic and I had a brown bag filled with condoms, birth control pills,  and urinary tract infection medicine inside of my purse (this matters later). When I entered the store, I was asked to check my purse. Knowing that most stores with security like this don’t actually (and shouldn’t) require women or men to hand over their purses, I did so anyway because mine was kind of large and I wanted to be in and out quickly. I went downstairs to purchase a pipe. Not only did I have to write down personal information with my name, address, and telephone number (all of which I fudged for the sake of–why the hell should I have to do that?) when I checked out with a pipe, but the girl working behing the counter was a frosty bitch about it. I joked with her and asked her if she was serious about making me fill out a form like this and she told me I was free to go to another store to purchase my tobacco pipe. I brushed it off and went upstairs to retrieve my purse and leave.

I was handed my purse and when I walked out the door and the alarm went off. No idea why. Having worked at bag check when I was much younger and knowing the drill, I stood around the door and looked for an employee to reciprocally verify that I hadn’t taken anything that I hadn’t paid for. No one came. After a minute, I decided to leave the store, as many people do in these situations when an employee does not show up at the door to double check why the alarm went off.

I was about half the way down the street when I noticed that a middle-aged man was racing toward me. He was yelling, causing a scene, and basically treating me, in public, like a thief who’d just casually walked out of his store. He demanded on the street that I show him the entire contents of my bag. As he went through my bag, including the brown bag with the condoms, birth control, and urinary tract infection medicine, I realized I was trembling from feeling violated. By no means did I have to show this man my bag, but he actually seemed crazy enough to call the cops on me if I didn’t and I didn’t want to deal with that. My privacy was totally violated and I haven’t forgotten the incident to this day. This was July 2010.