Upsales

I never really noticed the extent to which people are upsaling until my brother pointed it out to me at a restaurant. I can understand that those little extras add up to big bucks, but seriously, it's getting out of hand. I ate at Applebee's last night (yeah, I should know it's one of the lords of the upsale - we had a gift card) and the waitress, before I even had a chance to sit down, tried to get me a drink and a huge appetizer sampler. I was wrestling with the correct positioning of the baby seat in the high chair, trying to position it as far from the cigarette smoke as possible (come on Pennsylvania, get smoking out of public places), and she wanted know if I wanted a mango-rita or a giant appetizer. Then, as I order a steak (again, we had a gift card), she offers to load my mashed potatoes or top my steak. My wife ordered their combo meal, but was assured she could pick her dessert after she ate, which, as it turns out, offers more opportunities for upsaling. Rather than just asking if we want dessert, the waitress felt it was her duty to go out of her way to point out that my wife was getting dessert and they have many more delicious desserts. Again, I understand offering the options, but it was the sickly-sweet manner in which she offered. Other servers were doing the same thing, but they didn't sound nearly as annoying. It got to the point where I didn't even want to look her in the eye for fear of another sales pitch.

Today, the checkout boy at Radio Shack tried to get me to buy batteries, twice. As I bought a printer cable, he asked if I needed any batteries today. I said, "No." He then said, "They're on sale for $10 for 4." I guess he thought I had a batter operated printer, or something. Not only did I not need batteries, but that was a steep price for batteries, especially an off brand kind like their store brand. I go to Radio Shack to avoid the hassles of Staples, but I think they are feeling the pinch of the competition and need to beef up sales.

Last night I watched Vantage Point. It was one of the better movies that I've seen in a while. I've seen movies where they repeat the same bit a few times, and many times it fails. Vantage Point, however, did a really good job of making all of the perspectives different and interesting. Even though you roughly knew what was going to happen, each time through the 15 minutes was tense and exciting. It was almost ruined, though, when I watched one of the special features where the director described every actor as possessing a certain masculinity that allowed them to be vulnerable. He might even have attributed these characteristics to the female actors as well. He seemed to be explaining the unique nature of each actor, only to give them the same characteristics. It didn't really take away from the movie, but at one point my wife and I looked at each other and laughed. If you haven't seen it yet, it's a great movie.