EXTREMELY RUDE TREATMENT BY EMPLOYEE, KIDS NOT WELCOME.
I was in Oskaloosa for the first time this past weekend with some family to visit with some long-lost relatives of my husband. I walked into the store Sunday about Noon with my 3 girls (3.5 yr old twins and a 5.5 yr old), my husband, my mother-in-law, and my sister-in-law with her daughter (age 9). We have been told by many people, strangers and family alike, how well-behaved and polite my girls are.
Well, right when we walked into the store, my daughters saw some stuffed animals and other kid toys on the lower shelves and they started playing with them (very quietly and gently). I walked about 5 feet past them to browse some books when the woman working at the counter came over to my children, took the toys from their hands and put them back on the shelf and proceeded to tell them not to touch anything else. I was APPALLED!! This was completely uncalled for and rude. If you don't want children in your store, don't put TOYS at their eye level!! I would never allow my children to touch fragile things in a store but I absolutely do not have an issue if they are touching toys and being careful and quiet, which is what my kids were doing. In the short time we were in the store, we all found things that we were planning to purchase but because of the rude behavior by the crabby woman working there, we decided we didn't want to give our business to such a rude person and immediately left the store and went to the Smokey Row coffee house next door to get ice cream instead. While my husband and mother-in-law were watching my kids in the coffee house, I went back into the store and calmly told the woman that I felt her comments to my children to stop touching the toys were completely uncalled for and that her rudeness caused her to lose at least $100+ of business from me and my family. Instead of apologizing, she told me "Well I'm sorry that you can't control your children." EXCUSE ME?! My kids were NOT running in the store, were NOT taking everything off the shelf and making a mess, were NOT being loud or obnoxious, they were simply playing quietly and nicely with the toys that were at their eye-level. I have never experienced anything like this in a store before and I am appalled. I will never ever go back to this store and I expect an apology from this woman. read more