Amusement at Best Buy

We've all heard the stories of woe associated with shopping at Best Buy. People come home with computer boxes full of bricks or find that their local store won't honor a sale. I avoid making any substantial purchases at Best Buy, but I get a kick out of shopping there every so often, as I happen to live right around the corner from one. I found myself in need of a power strip today (not a surge protector, just a power strip) and decided to take a walk around the corner. Sadly, I accidentally left my phone at home, which is unfortunate because I would have liked to have a picture of some of these.

• Best Buy sells Logitech cordless mice, specifically the V220 Cordless Optical Mouse for Notebooks. They even come in three colors: pink, metallic red, and standard black. However, if you want a mouse of a certain color, you'll have to pay for it. The pink mouse was $29.99, the standard mouse was $32.99, and the red mouse was a whopping $49.99. Each mouse had the same design, accessories, and even the same packaging, the only difference being a small sticker over the bar code of the pink and red mice. I can see charging a bit more a special color, but $20 more? And charging less for the pink mouse? I just can't see the "logic" in it.
• Elsewhere in the laptop section was a shelf displaying a Windows laptop with a sign over it warning (as I recall), "CAUTION! This PC is infected with malware! Having your PC restored is expensive! Save money with Anti-Virus software!" Next to the sign was a smaller one showing Best Buy's pricing, where anti-virus software was something like $49.99, whereas having the Geek Squad fix malware would cost $199.99. This whole thing threw me off for a moment, because the laptop in question looked just fine; it was happily running an aquarium screensaver. Intrigued, I tapped the touchpad to revive it from its slumber, and lo and behold, it brought me to a mostly black screen with a little warning in the corner saying something to the effect of "Warning! Trojan malware has been detected! Would you like to run [name of anti-virus product]?" I thought it was unusual that Best Buy would show off that the pre-installed software was, in fact, not working to protect this particular computer. The sign was hilarious, too; you'd think they were warning people to stay away, lest they catch the virus themselves.
• Finally I was ready to find a power strip and check out. They had a small selection, ranging from $13 to $40, but all of them were surge protectors as well as power strips. I had done my research and knew that I should have found a power strip in the range of $4 to $8. Thinking that perhaps there were more in another section, I asked an employee if they had any power strips that were not surge protectors. He thought about it for a second, then said to the employee next to him, "Do we have any power strips that aren't surge protectors?" He thought about it for a second, then said, "No, we don't actually. I think they don't really make them anymore," (or something to that effect). Unconvinced, I said, "Oh, okay," left the store without buying anything, and walked to the OfficeMax next door. Not only did they have power strips for $5, but they had surge protectors for $7, so I went ahead and bought a surge protector anyway.

I was oh so tempted to get the power strip just so I could go back and show the Best Buy employee that they do, in fact, exist, and that I wasn't, in fact, crazy for thinking they might carry them. Or maybe I really was crazy to think Best Buy would sell a reasonably-priced product.

I'll have to actually bring my camera next time I go back for amusement and take discreet pictures to highlight Best Buy's crazy practices.