Restoration Pottery Pier and Barrel

I have learned some valuable lessons through my first 30 posts:

1. Weekend posts are dangerous because blogs typically appeal to an audience trapped at their desk desperately searching for a creative outlet – not an audience sleeping in, going to the pool, or out at the mall

2. Don’t make blogs interactive, even if they pay tribute to Bob Barker’s retirement. It’s always best to let the comments be spontaneous and not pressure the audience into responding to questions or games.
3. Comment Count is the only key performance indicator of a post's success

With those valuable lessons under my belt let’s continue with today’s post:

Following 2 weeks of anticipation, Sheri picked up her Honda MR-V (Pilot) last night, and after the light body work it looks brand new. She and her expat friends are happy with the new found freedom the SUV brings.

Once we dropped off the MR-V at home, Sheri and I braved the City Center Mall – the largest, most centrally located mall in Doha. In the summer it becomes quite popular as a source of free air conditioning, so parking is a mess – even on a weeknight. The parking situation was recently aggravated when a new construction project closed off about 500 parking spots out back – forcing everyone into the 2 story garage. We actually found a spot upstairs, near a "Qatari car wash" – aka a laborer with a bucket of sudsy water and a chamois who will wash the exterior of your car for 10 Riyals (about $3.00). After 2 weeks of driving around Doha and parking under the car port at our villa, my Accord was covered in a fine layer of dust and deserved a wash so I handed the guy a 10 Riyal bill and we headed for the door. The walk took about 3 minutes, but by the time we navigated the gridlocked parking garage we both had headaches and needed a shower. It must have been 110 degrees inside the garage at 7:00pm, all the more reason to stay at home.

We ate at a Lebanese restaurant in one of two foodcourts. Then Sheri and I multitasked, I stopped off at Cinnabon for the half-off special and Sheri found the MAC makeup store one level down. While waiting my turn to pay at Cinnabon a local woman in traditional clothes who was apparently going to place a large order motioned for me to go ahead and pay for my box of Cinnabons. After a month and a half of being cut in line, this simple gesture restored my faith in humanity.

I joined up with Sheri and we headed to the HomeStore (previous post described it as Marshalls, Room Store, and Michael’s all rolled into one). As in most stores, we handed our Cinnabon & MAC bags to the security guard in exchange for the numbered ticket we would redeem for our bag when leaving the store. It reminds me of using the locker at the water park / roller rink where you carry this orange numbered key around until it’s time to leave. At first I was actually a bit offended that they suspect you will steal something in the store, but now I’m quite pleased to hand over my bags and shop freely, without having to lug our previous purchases around the store.

As is usually the case, the beige curtains that we saw on Saturday were sold out n Monday (my fault for waiting), so we asked one of the salesman to check the warehouse – bingo, 4 panels with our name on them. As a common courtesy I shook the salesman’s hand and asked him for his name so that I could follow up with him on Wednesday. 30 minutes later as we arrived back home, the salesman called my mobile to let me know that he was going to stop by the warehouse on his way home to pick up our drapes so we could have them a day early. When was the last time a Walmart employee offered to drive across town on their own time to pick up that Microwave you wanted so badly?

Score: Humanity – 2… Callous Entitlement – 0

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