In past years, my family teased me for doing most of my Christmas shopping at the Bed, Bath & Beyond store in Hixson.
(READ MORE: Bed, Bath & Beyond closing in Hixson)
Well, by golly, they don’t have Mark Kennedy to kick around anymore. BB&B is gone. The chain went bankrupt.
I know that Bed, Bath & Beyond was never chic, or cheap. But I found it to be the perfect, one-stop, last-minute, grab-a-buggy-and-go-crazy shopping destination.
Now, here it is a week before Christmas and I’m at a loss.
Our boys were especially amused that I could knock out 90% of my Christmas shopping in a couple of hours of BB&B shopping. Over the years I’ve bought my friends and loved ones vanilla-scented candles, nonstick frying pans, mismatched silverware, fluffy towels, king-size bed pillows, kitchen knife sets, decorative wall clocks and earth-tone soup bowls. And that doesn’t even count the “beyond” items such as pulsating back massagers, heated neck pillows, toothpick holders and onion goggles.
Some will say Amazon killed BB&B others will blame COVID-19. Maybe it was just that the stores had stopped mattering to anyone except people with chaotic minds like mine.
I liked the fact that my eyes could dart around the store and I never knew what they would land on next. My favorite section was the “As Seen on TV” aisle. Some of us 20th-century people, who were raised on giant helpings of television programming, still figure that if something was on TV it must be good.
Last year, our youngest son said he wanted spoons for Christmas. Just spoons. He bent all our good spoons digging Mayfield chocolate ice cream out of the carton. I got him some heavy-duty spoons at BB&B that you couldn’t bend with an acetylene torch and a sledgehammer.
With only a few days left until Christmas, I’m looking for alternatives to BB&B. I dabble on Amazon, but part of me is uncomfortable adding to the load of all those harried delivery people I see buzzing about my neighborhood. Where I live it’s not unusual to see packages being delivered at 9 or 10 p.m. Bless their hearts.
I’m thinking about heading up to Etowah, Tennessee, to visit the Sundry Store, a family operation that offers 69,000 square feet of, well, sundries — compression pants, shower heads, hair detanglers, spatulas, motorcycle batteries, waffle irons and football cleats. It’s like a mall got sucked up into a tornado and then all the merchandise was swirled together and dropped in one spot.
(READ MORE: Etowah’s Sundry Store is 69,000 square feet of bargain heaven)
It’s glorious, actually. And I would highly recommend anyone go check it out. (It’s open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 1-5 p.m. Sundays.)
I went up a couple of years ago to check out the store on Highway 411 and came away amazed. The store doesn’t advertise a lot, but it has customers who arrive daily from as far away as Georgia and Kentucky.
It’s the perfect place to get rid of my Bed, Bath & Beyond yearnings.
I can’t think of any other place to get a waffle iron and a round bale of hay.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645.