Theme Week, Day Two

Jeremy’s Sametime Status Proudly Presents

Rejected Vacation Theme Week Ideas Week!  Day 2:  Top 5 “Sunsations” Stores


Wait.  They have Sunsations down where you went on vacation?  Interesting.  I've heard about them, but only in legend.  


One of the problems with going to a popular tourist area for vacation is the glut of touristy shops you come across.  So many places that make their living selling kitschy locally themed merchandise made somewhere entirely other than that particular locale.  In the case of a tourist beach, you get snow globes, personalized bottles of sand (I actually found one with "Jeremy" on it...totally didn't buy it), shot glasses, commemorative spoons (Nobody's ever managed to explain this phenomenon to me to my satisfaction), printed t-shirts with modern hip catch phrases, those signs for your house saying stuff like "I'd Rather Be At The Beach," and other random crap like that.  Sometimes, you get lucky and one store takes care of all of your kitschy touristy crap souvenirs for you...and in my case, that store is called "Sunsations."  

Since all of this garbage is located conveniently in one store, you'd think the need for multiple establishments would be limited...and boy would you be wrong.  No, sir...there are in fact an astounding 14 Sunsations stores in a roughly 10-mile stretch of beach coast.  This is nonsense.  So much so that the glut of Sunsations stores is a bit of a running gag while on vacation.  Phrases drenched in sarcasm like "Oh my goodness...they have a 'Sunsations' here?" and "If only there were a 'Sunsations' nearby," ring out nearly non-stop.  It seemed very appropriate to rank my Top 5 "Sunsations" stores and present them to you for your edutainment. 

Here's the catch...up until about Day 5 of my vacation, I had never actually been in one, leave alone five or more.  Also, my reaction to being in a "Sunsations" was more one of "Dear God, get me out of this store as soon as possible," than of excitement or even, quite frankly, lukewarm interest.  These factors make it remarkably difficult to feign joy over any one of the stores over any of the others.  So, unfortunately for you, you'll have to discover for yourselves which "Sunsations" store is the best...since this idea for a Theme Week never got off the ground.