Being in Seattle, I was pretty happy to stop at Fry’s.  I didn’t have much that I needed and there wasn’t anything that was an deal I had to take home.  My Uncle Alex has a nice late 2006 iMac that only had one GB of ram, much less than the typical guidance for Mac OSX.  An excellent excuse to stop at Fry’s if there ever was one.

We wandered the store while I pondered whether I should scimp and get the clearance 2*1GB kit or splurge on a 2GB stick so that the total memory would be 2.5GB.  The difference was $12 (~25%) so I went with the $32 1GB*2 stick OCZ kit.  Down on checkout three, I signed the paperwork and waited patiently for the slow staff to get the memory.  The checkout lady took the credit card, swiped it, then handed my memory.  That’s when I noticed that someone had half-halfheartedly tried to tape the kit closed – it was either returned or a floor show piece kit.  In any case, not worth full price even if it was a reasonable clearance price.

That’s when things got really annoying.  The checkout lady refused to get another kit until she was instructed to do so multiple times by the on duty manager.  The guy in the cage supposedly said that all the kits were open, that is why they were on clearance.  I should have insisted seeing another kit if that was the case.  Then it turned out they were going to charge me a restocking fee to return it – even though I hadn’t signed the form.  Enraged at this point, I stalked back into the store, got a 2GB stick, used my new in-store credit to buy it, and left the store behind my entire family who had grown sick of waiting the fifteen minutes it took me to check out.

My Uncle’s iMac is snappier now.  I guess it was worth it.

–Nat