As for the photography thing, I always ask the shop if I am allowed to take photos, if they say no then thats fine. Although if I was trying to expose something I would photograph secretly

–Joe–>

Thank you for stopping by my personal (though still public) space on the web and raising the level of discourse for this humble blog with your enlightened and enlightening comments. It’s too bad you didn’t leave your own name or web address for me to return the favor.

But I take issue with your claim that I was “taking [my] anger out on poor security guards.” First, I was hardly taking my anger out on the guard. In fact, I think the transcript shows I was rather reserved when accosted by her and that I left before the conversation rose to the level of a personal attack. I simply questioned her about the policy of the store. If I were tasked with enforcing rules for a faceless beaurocratic mess of an evil multinational corporation, I know I’d make a point of knowing the reasoning behind the rules I was defending, and I’d be able to articulate a) the rationale behind them and b) why I felt comfortable enforcing them. Certainly, she would have preferred I hadn’t, but this hardly constitutes an assault.

As to the store being “private property,” I have to disagree. The store became a public place when it hung its shingle and invited me in to spend my money on its crap. I neither caused damage to property or caused a scene (in fact, no other customers heard the exchange between myself and the security guard, so not even her pride should have been hurt). Taking photographs is not illegal in this context. If I cared that much about it (and I obviously don’t), I’d feel comfortable going to court on this issue and am confident I’d win.

That said, your point is well taken. Sure, the store can make their own policies, but to what extent can they do so? Though I’d hardly feel comfortable comparing what I went through to civil rights battles, you can see the slippery slope a store can get into when they make arbitrary rules to remove any customer they choose (note the spelling: the present tense of the verb is “choose,” not “chose”). You say you’d have told me to leave for taking pictures, so I’d love to hear your defense of the policy, which is all I ever wanted to begin with.

But I think you miss my other points as well. Namely, though you can never find anyone knowledgeable (or kind, or even present, for that matter) to help you find something in the store, you sure can always find a security guard to give you grief. Toys “R” Us clearly cares much more about protecting their property (and, evidently, images of their property) then they are about caring for the customer with actual service. I find this fairly disgusting.

At any rate, I’ll just close by questioning your admonition for me to “get a life.” While it’s true that I might perhaps make better use of my time than I did by going into Toys “R” Us (you’ll get no argument from me on that count) or writing it up on my personal blog, what does it say about someone who has nothing better to do than to read the darn thing and launch an anonymous attack on the author in defense of a corporation that hardly needs the help?

I could, perhaps, just “tell you to leave” (in this context, delete your comment), but I made this blog public when I allowed comments, so I won’t do that. I’d rather engage in dialogue than simply silencing without reason. That’s just one of the many differences between me and Toys “R” Us.