Express mannequins are blind

If you don't know by now, I'm back in State College working at the lovely Pretzel Gourmet again this summer. For all you skeptics out there, there are good reasons for doing so, which are as follows:

1. More hours
2. More money
3. A feeling that my work-to-compensation ratio is better than at Hoss's
4. Assistant Manager (granted, only a title change...)
5. Less stressful

Now I know people who know me well will look at that list and not think that I would go back to such a place for those reasons, especially for more money, but let me rationalize a bit. It's only for times I'm off of school and there really aren't ways of acquiring teaching internships (especially since all teachers are required to be interns of a sort in order to graduate). Thus, the best thing I can do is earn as much money as I can. Now don't take this to mean that I should start acquiring money illegally, but in a way, unless your summer job is going to help you get a better job in the future (whatever a "better job" is), summer jobs are for money and keeping you from being bored. Unfortunately for me, the Pretzel Gourmet only accomplishes the former.
Bringing me to my thoughts of the day while sitting in the Pretzel Gourmet:

I love seeing the elderly. If you've been here before, you've no doubt read my mini-essay on the elderly. Well, here's another reason I love the elderly: elderly couples are adorable! I realize that it's not the most manly or culturally acceptable thing to say, but they are! Look at them next time you get the chance. I've worked at the Pretzel Gourmet for about three years and only this week have I ever really seen elderly couples as cute. But seriously, they are incredibly encouraging to me in that it shows that marriages do work; that no matter how hard society attempts to redefine the marriage and change the roles of husband and wife and destroy the family and community, love still prevails. But, of course, we knew that all along (cf. 1 Corinthians 3).

I hate Express. First of all, the place is as intimidating as Victoria's Secret, Hot Topic, the makeup counter at Bon-Ton and the DEB; I just can't do it. I get near the place and feel like I'm getting dizzy. It's too white, and big, and bright, and it has the most ridiculous music. That said, I want to discuss their mannequins. I'm not talking about what they're wearing (that's for another day). What I want to discuss is the design of their heads. Sure, who looks at the heads. Well, when you're stuck at a failing pretzel business 40-hours a week, you start to become very accustomed to your surroundings. Regardless, they're half-heads; that is, they end at the bridge of the nose and leave off the eyes and brain. I thought about why they would do that, but then I laughed at how truly simple their reasoning is. Express wants you to buy their clothes whether you like them or not, right? So they rely on advertizing to help "convince" you that their product is best. Not the best argument, but hang with me. So if the store wants you to buy their stuff and doesn't care what reasoning you go through as long as you buy stuff from them, their best tactic will be to get you to make an irrational decision. Disagree? Look at the mannequins at any store. They're all "perfect" people. And then look at how they present them under stylish lighting and hung in fancy ways next to other things that would look good with it. It's all very charming and clearly an attempt to convince you to buy something. Also, listen to the music at any big fashion place: it's loud, uptempo, and repetitive. Don't think that gets your heartrate going? Ever feel like you're always in a rush in a clothing store? At last you see where I'm going. Express doesn't want you to have eyes or a brain (figuratively, of course). They want you to make blind, irrational judgments to turn a fat profit. It's that simple. I really can't explain it any better.

That's all for now. I need to make these shorter if I want to update more regularly. Feel free to comment.