I’m Getting Up There In Years and Here Are Some Store That Don’t Exist
Hi friends, Kerry Quirk here with an amazing offer. Now, I’m sure because you think that you’re the main character in my blog, you can chime in. Frankly, I don’t really care. I’m 34 years old. Have lived in Mass my whole life (though varying and sometimes unpleasant forms of it), and I’m going to talk about some stores that are either on the fringe of walking the plank or that really just went “poof”. Maybe this is a cheap post, maybe I might get sponsored. At least I’m a Millennial with a website I pay a lot of money for and not a Gen Z kid taking advantage of a free platform and making millions of dollars every day. That would be stupid. Idiotic even. Just plain silly if we’re being honest. And no, you fucking idiots, I’ve been doing this blog for…well it doesn’t matter how long, but they don’t want me directing traffic here LOL. I tried. Anyway, let’s get into it.
KMART: Beautiful store. Always smelled like pool supplies. Lana Del Rey Ray..Ri? Whatever. She had no idea what Summertime Sadness was because I bet she had never been in a KMart in the summer hearing “Take a Bow” by Madonna in the fluorescent light with your mum looking for shorts that fit and getting to smell the plastic deliciousness of pool supplies you don’t have a pool for. However, she got her Marlboro Red and I got a Slip N Slide so we all won that day.
Bradlees: Better toy section, better plastic smell, pretty dark and creepy. Ocean State Job Lot seemed to have patent this smell because I go there just for nostalgic value and to chat shit with the old Italian women.
Strawberries: Best CD store ever. I wanted to work here so bad, but they closed before I could. I actually still to this day of having dreams of going in there and buying stuff. God I wanted to write on that weird “white board” which was a black board with like anti-white board markers. They had everything and it was quiet, and air conditioned, and next to the Stop N Shop so I didn’t have to deal with that hell hole while my parents bought things. (You know by the time I was able to walk to stores on my own and not have to be locked in the car for periods of time, though that was nice so long as your Gameboy or Walkman batteries didn’t die).
Blockbuster: IT SMELLED LIKE POPCORN AND THAT HOLOGRAM JACK FROST MOVIE WAS ALWAYS STARING AT ME.
Charlotte Russe: Now we’re going to get a bit older with it, if that’s alright with you. CR was like a club rat store like Forever 21 and Wet Seal and one of those types. HOWEVER, everything cost $13.50-19.50 and was cheaply made and shit, except for the shoes. Oh, and their shoes only came in full sizes so if you’re a 7 1/2 like me you’d need to get an 8 which is the shoe version of a medium. So I had about, oh I don’t know…20 pairs of size 9 plastic pumps. Didn’t fit. Most had vomit on them.
Radio Shack: I think I’m most upset about this because as a DJ, like if you’re a DJ or a photographer or anyone who may on the fly need some kind of cable, now we have to suck Jeff Bezo’s cable and I really don’t want to. I don’t trust that Prime shipping because guess what it’s not? Prime. “Oh my cable is fucked, I could go to…oh no I can’t that’s right. They’re bankrupt now”.
Wet Seal: Speak of the devil. Buy one get one for a penny. That seems like a plausible business model when you’re selling things people want with things people don’t want. You are LYING to yourself if you ever found two things that fit that deal. Did you accept that you were buying something for a penny? Yeah you did. Did you like it? No. “Will you wear this?” “No, but I might wear this”. “OK well you take this and I’'ll add it in, I don’t even care, it’s Halloween”.
Love Culture: I am most sad about this store. It was like if Motley Crue and Jersey Shore got together and made a store. And it was awesome. cheetah print everywhere. Ugh I can’t even explain. And you may say to yourself “Kerry, people don’t wear cheetah anymore”. Luckily for you, I still pull off cheetah more than successfully and look better than you do, so why don’t you go get your Starbucks and check yourself into the botox clinic and let people enjoy themselves sweetheart. God that was so much meaner and I’m glad I edited it. They had pleather too. White Snake video type shit too, awesome store.
Walk with me on this one…It’s pronounced “FA-LEENES’s Basement”: This store had everything. That escalator down the stairs knew you might get a cool back to school outfit (if you weren’t condemned to Catholic School Shittery like I was and had to wear awful hot things everyday that someone wore before you, also not a stab at my parents, I wouldn’t pay full price for that shit either). But it was a great STOW-AH. Good homecoming dresses and genuinely anything you might need. I miss that store so much.
Stores I’m confused about:
Battery Plus: I went in here one time to use the bathroom and all they had were watch batteries and lightbulbs. This must be a front because who is coming in here? And it was packed, on a Tuesday afternoon in the middle of the summer. They did not have a bathroom so I peed behind their handicap accessible dumpster. That’s like a store that just sells clickers and bike locks. Like what the fuck is going on in here?
I don’t even want to type the word but Papyrus: Worst font ever invented and everyone seems to use it, especially in New England with Patriots/Red Sox type ensembles in their ice cream parlors and we just have to take it. They sell cards and paper and ornate figurines. WHO IS THEIR DEMOGRAPHIC?? Who is walking in there? You don’t have a CVS near you? You have to got to Shitty Font LLC?
Sleepy’s Mattress Stores: I like a good Italian-American business model, no comment. I wish them the best.
KB Toys: Yeah people talk about Toys R Us but KB Toys was better because they’d always have those annoying little bark bark flip dogs and the penguins that would go up the stairs and slide at the door so your parents would get annoyed and just let you run amuck while they want some place terrible. That seemed like a good business model except everyone is so worried about creeps that they don’t realize it’s the weird dude you left your kids with during the pandemic but no worries, RIP KB Toys.
The WB Store: Now, I actually don’t know if this was a common thing. The Natick Mall had a killer store called the WB store which was like the Disney store but Bugs Bunny and Animaniacs and anything in their realm. There’s no funny joke here folks, just miss the store.
OH, yes. Connecticut, here: Fuck you for ruining Cheeseboy. Not related but I blame you.
Honorable mentions: The joke shop on Rt 9 in Framingham by Caldors (leave me alone), Ann & Hope (Southern MA and RI dept type store, it’s coming back).
0/10 people ever found what they were looking for at a Forever 21. Shit was the quick sand we always heard about.