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Good Grove/Bad Grove: "Get That Thing Out Of My Face" Edition
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What would happen if you went to the Grove on a busy Sunday afternoon, stood outside one of the stores and started throwing things at people passing by? You'd probably be tackled by security in about five seconds flat. But if what you were throwing was three feet wide, made of mylar and available for purchase, you'd apparently be allowed to stay there with the full permission of the Grove management. We're not sure exactly who the market is for those stupid hover discs (five-year-olds who are really easily impressed? comic book geeks who need one more thing bearing the image of Spider-Man?), and we don't care. To the other 99% of us, they're just annoying as hell.Hover discs appear to be some sort of bastard hybrid of a balloon, a Frisbee and Satan himself. When you toss one in the air, it floats there for an irritatingly long period of time, a fact that hover disc vendors use to their advantage to piss off as many people at once as possible in the hopes that one of them will be intrigued (i.e., stupid) enough to buy one.
It's one thing to allow sidewalk vendors in an outdoor shopping mall. But having a sales pitch literally thrown in your face is obnoxious marketing at best and physical harassment at worst. Can you imagine if the Sanrio cart tried to attract attention by chucking Hello Kitty backpacks and hair clips at passersby and then asking the people who got hit to throw them back?
If you want to see just how invasive the hover discs and their vendors are, grab a balcony table at Madame Wu's or a window seat at Barnes & Noble and watch below as throngs of irritated shoppers try to dodge every toss. It's like watching celebrities dodge Joan & Melissa on the red carpet.
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Is it too much to ask that we write off this novelty item before it ever really takes off? Let's float an idea here. If hover discs must be sold in outdoor malls, can't they at least be confined to a small area? A cage, perhaps? Until then, whenever we see them coming, we'll be heading the other way because hover discs are a nuisance, and they're definitely part of the Bad Grove.
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