I've decided this year that I won't be shopping at Spirit Halloween anymore. The bug was planted in my ear through the story of the haunter's tombstone being duplicated, but I didn't think much of it until visiting the store this year.
The first thing that crossed my mind was how far they take the dead animal thing. It's sons thing I'm sensitive to, and I know there's definitely a fine line in regard to the skeleton animals that are on the market. But I can't stomach the dead crows, knifed rats, and the new cat popping out of the urn. That's a personal thing which I'll admit.
What really got to me - on the back wall they had many previous year's animatronics, including several I'd love to have. These are all marked as Returns, and the boxes are in rough shape. I would be all over these even if they didn't work, just as static props. However none were marked down! I just can't imagine paying full price for something like that. I did notice they had a section of clearance costumes, including two kids' fireman hats with big chunks of the rim broken off that were only marked down 20% off. Between that and this year's new offerings being so underwhelming, I just can't deal with them. Four years ago I bought a Harvester from them and it never worked. I unfortunately didn't get around to using it that halloween, so I pulled it out in the winter to look at it, but it was way too late to return it. My fault. The next year I mentioned it to the manager who was awesome enough to let me trade it in for a different one. However the next one didn't work either. I never returned it, I've just used it as static. But I have gotten other thunder from them since. I can't do it anymore though.
