I like Bath & Body Works but let’s face it, this is a store for soap, hands/body creams and candles that uses the same 15 scents and renamed them each passing seasons to something else. As cute as the names are, they are always the same smells as the last season but with a new packaging… That being said, I still buy a lot of their stuff.

Last week I was there for one specific search, I needed a small one wick white candle in a clear or white container to go inside an opaque and small vase where it could go easily unnoticed when lit. 15 steps into the store I found exactly what I needed: One Starry Night, which was even more perfect because what I needed it for a Star Wars decorated kitchen table.

I grabbed it and lunged directly to the confusing checkout line. People all line up between 5 rows of products but there’s only one cashier facing row #3 so who will be called next is a mystery, they really need to redesign this area or maybe use the old standard red velvet stanchion lines to encourage shoppers to line up properly.

Anyway, when it was my turn to pay, the girl rang my $10 one wick candle and made a face like someone forced her to add and subtract numbers mentally… it just didn’t compute. Then she lifted the candle so she could look at the barcode and said: “this isn’t on sale” to which I replied: “it’s alright, I was ready to pay full price”. She then left and conferred with another Bath & Body Works professional and made a couple of cute faces to each other, heads were tilted to one side, then to the other and she finally walked back to me to say that the candle was NOT FOR SALE, which I had misunderstood earlier for NOT ON SALE, it was only a sample. So I was a bit confused, I told her I picked it up on one of their shelves mid-store but she insisted that it was only there for people to sample… I did my own head tilt there and questioned: “So… Am i suppose to bring my own matches and try the candle in the store just to see if I like it?” She made another cute face and said: “No, no, no, it’s for people to smell it… they sample the smell”. “So” I said, “this is on the shelves but it’s not for sale, right? That seems a bit silly to have candles for sale amongst some that are just samples, I can see you doing this with hand cream or soap, people want to try those before purchasing… but not for candles”. She then went on to explain that eventually they would be for sale but that for now they were new and just on display and for sampling…

So I left empty-handed, which was perfect as I needed both hands to scratch my head trying to figure out what had just happend…

But as I left I thought to myself that maybe BATH & BODY WORKS & BRAIN TURNED OFF might be a better name for the store.