The Problem with Radio Shack

I walked home from work yesterday. For my father, for a period of about ten years, this would have been a feat of profound ease, since he lived directly above his business by six floors. I'm about seven miles away. Luckily, I wore my iPod Shuffle mom got me for my birthday, my distance running shoes, and a good attitude. The miles went quickly. I took some shots of the UIC campus at golden hour - the magical time just before sunset when the refraction of the Earth's atmosphere brings the reds, oranges and deeper colors (green flashes just before the sun disappears) normally bounced into space back to the planet. Combine that lighting with just a little slow motion, body armor and Viggo Mortensen and you've every third shot from "The Lord of the Rings". They reminded me of the three years Brandi and I shared in our old apartment. Sure, it was small, but every cloudless sunset we watched downtown turn into a pumpkin-hued faeryland. Then the sodium lights of the parking garage came on and night turned into a permanent sunset from the south. It wasn't our favorite direction anyway.

I walked through some prospective neighborhoods. Chicago has changed so much since I moved here. I remember my friend Dave advising me to live anywhere but Cabrini Green. Now there are condos going up opposite the mall there. Yeah, you can still see the shattered hulks of the low income skyscrapers dominating the view there, and, yeah, only the brave or the foolhardy really live there just yet, but you have to admit it's a step up.

Not that all change is positive. ComedySportz lost its lease on the space it occupied for five and a half years, the former Steppenwolf space, soaked in history and the screams of the victims of David Mamet's early stabs at dialogue, because the owner sold the building out from under them to build condos. The Annoyance Theatre got it worse: they turned it into a parking lot. (Joni Mitchell refused to comment.) Sometimes you work so hard to improve an area that your reward is your failure to afford anything there.

Still, Chicago looks nice. We're in for a good time this Saturday when we go out to look at condominiums. Bucktown, Wicker Park, Humboldt Park and other spots along the Blue Line elevated train may be on the slate. I like to know a place with my feet. My feet give thumbs up. This is painful, and I won't ask them again for their opinion.

Ultimately, besides wanting to get home, I also targeted Toys R Us (how the hell do you get the dyslexic "R" on a standard keyboard and how are they listed on the stock exchange: "TZRS"? Or is that a company that makes tazers?) and Radio Shack. Toys, etc. had the usual bevy of games, dolls, action figure and - my favorite - shape shifting robots that transform from robots to cars, airplanes, rockets, video cameras, construction equipment, dinosaurs, enormous spheres... and back! Unfortunately, I'm a little too Down-the-Rabbit-Hole to appreciate what's out now. Haunting all the Transformers forums waiting for the next leaked shot of MegaSCF Starscream or the Cybertron Jetfire repaint they're calling Astrotrain has spoiled me during non-virtual toy runs. Of course, I've still got the itch. Just ask Brandi how many times we've gone to Target that I have had to go to the toy aisle to look at Transformers. (Every time.) So, while I pondered the wisdom of dropping $35 on a Millennium Falcon that transforms into roboticized versions of Han Solo and Chewbacca, I ultimately decided against it and just used the free access to the Little Boys' room to relieve seven miles' bladder pressure. Then it was off to Radio Shack where, try as I might, I could not make myself enter.

Here we come to the crux of the problem. I wasn't tired, at least not tired enough to walk two doors down. I had enough time, though we were nearing nine o'clock, I still had at least fifteen minutes to spare. I needed to go; the aforementioned GP2X has a loose spring inside the battery compartment that is just waiting for me to grow some guts and solder it down. I needed solder and possibly a new soldering gun. I like looking. Why did I dread going inside?

It reminds me of a quote from Braveheart. Edward Longshanks, chief villain of the film, proposes the Droit du Seigneur, whereby any bride who marries a Scot must spend her first night at the castle of the English lord, presumably with the English lord, and not necessarily sleeping. "The problem with Scotland," Longshanks says, "is that it's full of Scots. We'll breed them out."

The problem with Radio Shack is that it's full of Radio Shack employees. I'm not sure what part of their training adds that extra sheen of craziness when they ask what they can help you find but I inevitably feel the hair on the back of my neck stand on end when they get near me. Probably, they know a lot more than me about electronics, but that doesn't help them find what I need, just gives them better segues between RJ-11 phone cord and selling me last year's Cingular clamshell phone and plan. I feel what I think a doe would feel in a sporting goods store: sure the all-cotton shirts feel nice and I can even nibble on some but doesn't that "hunting" section have something to do with harming my relatives and OH MY GOD, I think some of those shoes are actually made out of my Aunt Berenice. The three nicest words in English may be "I love you", but in the hands of an expert, the four creepiest are, "Can I help you?" followed by the nine creepiest, "Can I help you find something at Radio Shack?" No, please, gosh no. I would feel worse about my prejudice, but the chain that foisted both the Tandy brand and the TRS-80 on an unsuspecting America deserves a little pain, I think. If I need a top of the line remote control car, I'll pay the dumb consumer tax at Sharper Image. If I want something more reasonable, I'll hit the eBay, where I'm sure there are thousands just waiting to get out of the homes of kids who grew out of burning through AA batteries chasing squirrels around pavement and now burn rubber chasing the ladies in their beaters. Besides miniature electronics sold for 99 cents in little dime bags, what the hell else does Radio Shack have that other chains do not? It's not customer service or a dedication to quality (Apple) or kitsch (Spencer). When they're not busy lurking in their own stores, what other things do Radio Shack employees do? And who would want to work there?

The secret may lie in those little dime bags after all. I had a disturbing thought: what could explain all that gear, survival in one of the harshest retail environments, a longevity that would put the Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers to shame, and why do they bug customers with a metronomic regularity? What if the last human employee of Radio Shack died sometime in the early nineties, having not hired his replacement, but BUILDING him (her/it) in his significant downtime? What if Radio Shack is staffed by robots, inhuman golems driven only by the desire to sell little bits of themselves in lilliputian sandwich bags and sipping freely of the AC wall sockets during lunch? I know we were all worried about Steve Jobs being replaced by a Steve Jobs-bot, but HAS IT ALREADY HAPPENED and IS IT SIGNIFICANTLY MORE MEDIOCRE THAN WE EXPECTED?

I can say no more. That Tickle Me Elmo is watching me with suspicion and malice. I have to distract it, either by tickling or a flamethrower and I'm all out of tickles.