I have needed to sing the praises of Mastermind toys for a long time now. Let me be clear. I need to sing the praises of the people who run the stores and the people who manage the website and run the chat on it. The rest of the site design, despite the fact that they use one of those dumpster fires called accessibility overlays, is an electronic disaster and I wish they would fix it because everything else about the place is glorious.
Ever since I discovered them a couple of years ago, I love going there to pick out a birthday or Christmas present for the nephews. It’s amazing because I can walk in there with super vague ideas and the person working there will find just the right thing. They’re so patient. One time, I went there to pick out a toy for one nephew who I didn’t know too much about his interests, and we threw around tons of ideas until finally I settled on one, and they didn’t mind! There was no sense of “Are you done yet?”
And the cherry on top is they will wrap stuff for you. I suck at wrapping gifts, so this is awesome! Every time I’ve been in the store, they have wrapped stuff for me and put the names on it and everything! And they have way cool wrapping paper. I was sorting out whose gifts were whose this morning, and the Aira agent was describing them and it sounded amazing! There were robots with santa hats on them and sleighs and things written on it like “Lump of cool” and “yule rules” and all sorts of stuff. The agent couldn’t stop talking about this amazing wrapping paper.
Last year, with the pandemic and needing to shop from home, I couldn’t touch stuff or ask questions. But the chat people were super patient with me, solving problems ranging from mailing mishaps to questions about website issues to simply answering questions about how something looked. Later, I got Seppa’s birthday present from there, and they did all sorts of dancing to connect me with the store so we could arrange to have it picked up because their instacart store wasn’t fully set up. And then, when I was on the phone with the store, the girl from the store remembered me, even though I hadn’t been in the store for a year and a half. She’s either got a really good memory, or my laugh is so annoying that it scarred her for life. I’m going to say she has a really good memory. My ego will survive better that way.
So this year, when I was sure that this Christmas, we’re screwed, I started planning to hit Mastermind Toys, and early. Then I found out we got a store dangerously close to us and I was off!
They were just as awesome as the other store. I walked in there with skeletons of ideas, and they found wicked gifts for each of the nephews that I’m sure they will love. I was done in no time! They wrapped them all, and made sure they had all the right names on them. I came home with this heavy bag of presents, and without thinking about it said “Christmas is Saved!” Every time I look at them, I giggle thinking about how much the kids will like them.
Mastermind Toys is the best. Don’t ever go away and don’t ever lose your ability to find awesome employees with all the passion and all the patience.
