This evening my brother, father and I left the house to Best Buy for the sole purpose of buying my youngest brother a birthday present. However, multiple purposes arose. The three of us walked into Best Buy at 7:28PM. My brother and father headed in one direction, while i headed to the Returns and Exchanges desk. I was returning a game given to me as a gift. This process went smoothly. Best Buy took the game and I received store credit. While waiting in line at the Returns and Exchange desk, i browsed the flyer. On the last page advertised a HDMI receiver with a 5.1 Surround Sound System on sale. I asked a girl begind the counter if they sold the receiver seperately and she replied that i ask someone in the home theatre department. as i head over there i meet up with my brother and father and they tag along with me. i find an employee in the department and ask him if they sell the receiver without the speakers. He nods and shows me a receiver. I ask how many HDMI In/Outslots it has and he responds that it has none. I point out to him that the receiver advertised in the flyer has HDMI ports and told him this was the wrong receiver. He decides to bring me to the entire package that is set up near the back of the store. I ask himto check if this receiver had HDMI (2 In, 1 Out), it did. I ask him to check the model number and to see if there were any in stock. The answer was negative. The only way i was going to get the receiver was if i bought it with the speakers. I agreed. The employee said that this was the only model left and since it is the floor model i get a 10% discount. Fair enough. He says they don't have a box for it anymore and decides to get a replacement. He returns with a small box. He says he will be right back as he has to get a bag with various tools and manuals that accompany the receiver and speakers. He returns and says he has bad news (Note: 30 minutes have passed). The bad news is that the remote is missing. He goes off to find it. Minutes later he comes back with a remote. This remote is not the one that is suppose to be packaged with the system. He says i can have this remote or he can order another remote from Sony. I tell him to order another one. I ask if we can use this other remote for the time being, he replies no. He takes my information for the remote control order and begins to package the receiver in the small box. As he fumbles around with the speakers, he realises he needs a screw driver. He leaves and comes back only to leave again because he needs scissors to cut pieces of plastic. In this time he is gone, my father takes the speakers and the wires off the shelf and packages them. He comes back only to leave yet again to put the screw driver and scissors back. We now have everything packed and ready to purchase at a counter. (Note: I already have my youngest brother's birthday present with me) He begins to scan things through. He tells us the total and we give him 2 Best Buy store credit cards and AmEx to pay for the entire purchase (the surround sound and receiver package with my brother's presents and Shawn of the Dead on DVD). He rings through the first gift card without any problems and it deducts from the total purchase price. He rings the second card through only for it to completely cover the entire remaining purchase price (+$350). i told him that is incorrect. he begins the fiddle around with the card and calls over a few other employees to help him out. After a few minutesi realised i still had the receipt to the defunct gift card that shows the actual amount of the card. he leaves with it to find a manager to help solve the problem.the manager was found, but thehelphe neededwas not. (Note: 1 hour and 15 minutes in Best Buy).On the counter where i was patiently waiting to be rung though, and then leave, laid a Monster HDMI cable. My father was looking at it when the employee came back. He said thatthat cable istheir most expensive cable and that it was +$100. My father says he wouldn't pay anymore than $35 for an HDMI cable. The employee leaves only to return with a $75 HDMI cable. He asks my dad how much he wants for it and he replied $35. the deal was made. We asked for a second cable for the same price and a second deal was made. (Note: we have now been in Best Buy for more than an hour and a half and the manager was not happy. the employee was also embarrassedand very sorry). Instead of $150 for two cables, we spent a mere $70. he finally scans everything through butstill isn't able to get the second card working. he puts the purchase on hold and sends us to the Returns and Exchange desk where a different girl served us. she also failed at fixing the defective card and gave us the amount in cash. we sign the receipts and head to the exit desk for a few items to be demagnetized. a family managed to get their before us and, as i should have expected by now, were having difficulty with the demagnetizing. we make our way to the desk and are scanned. we finally leave at 9:23PM. We spent nearly 2 hours at Best Buy. 90% was watching the employee makes mistakes, run around and curse under his breath. To think our sole purpose was to get a brithday present and it turned out like this. what would make this better is if my receiver breaks. Best Buy doesn't carry that model anymore. therefore i would get a receiver that is better than my current one. but i don't want that to happen until the day before my warranty ends. ;)

to quote the comic book guy, "Worst episode ever!"