Saturday, July 04, 2009

NEARLY NAKED FIREWORKS


"Taking a clue from the area’s proliferation of bikini espresso joints, a stand called Nearly Naked Fireworks opened June 28 on the corner of North Meridian Street and Fifth Avenue Northeast."
—from The News Tribune, Wednesday 01 July 2009

The child and I visited the Nearly Naked Fireworks Stand in Puyallup. We visited mostly because it is close and partly to see if it was as overhyped as I expected.

Some area residents have protested on the sidewalk in front of the stand, calling the business immoral. Someone attempted to deface the stands sign on the corner of Fifth Street Northeast and Meridian Avenue by throwing a can of white paint at it (as pictured above).

It seems that the majority of people visiting the stand are guys, including the two guys that drove up from Oregon to check out the stand. (Seriously, guys, you could have saved yourself a tone of gas, money, and time if you checked out "nearly naked" women online.) However, when we were there a family showed up and a woman wanted to know where the promised bikini-clad staff were at, so the one in attendance stood up (she was seated in a lawn chair, not helping anyone) in her stars and stripes bikini and proceeded to "help" customers.

The child picked out a package of sparklers, a package of morning glory sparklers, and a package of crackling balls. Miss Bikini didn't seem to know any of the prices and relied upon the stand owner's son (who appeared to be about ten-years-old) to tell her what we owed them. (I had already figured that out in my head since everything was priced to end in dollar or half-dollar amounts. We paid our $2.50 and left, satisfied with our purchase and sorry we had wasted our time on what did indeed turn out to be a bunch of good old-fashioned hucksterism.

I would have preferred someone with clothes who knew what customer service was to someone in a bikini who was merely there thinking that there job was to be ogled. These fireworks were a dud!

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The tackiness award: the "Tips for Tits" tip jar. They didn't get anything from us.

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The illiterate award: the sign inside the stand. "Go ahead and stare, that's what there [sic] here for." Also, the runner-up tackiness award.

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Mind you, I am no prude, but this is pure P.T. Barnum. I don't even know why people are getting upset. It just makes things like this proliferate due to unwarranted negative publicity.

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