Waterbeds N Stuff

When I first came to Columbus as a young, inexperience, awkward boy from bumpkinville I thought Waterbeds and Stuff was just another independent headshop that dotted the off-​campus strip then. Later, I discovered that they are a corps, like many retailers are. Can you imagine what is said during a walk thru by a corporate type: «Those crack pipes are in the correct place!» «That dildo is supposed to be marked down!»” Fix your skinflix inventories!”
Of course it is «the stuff» that is of interest here.
This W&S still wears the sharp purple and blue paint on its old brick building framework which was a part of the architectural caccaphony that made me fall in love with campus High Street back in the day. The inside was smaller than I remember, and more of a mess. Perhaps shopping at other W&Bs around town has warped my memory of this place; perhaps this place is struggling to maintain relevance in changing times; but it has lost much appeal. The cases still contain a selection of pipes, one-​hitters, and bongs. But the rest of the store, containing tyedyed and novelty tee shirts is a mess, like a teenagers bedroom, with cloths laying astrunned on racks and items crooked on the wall. Dingy and grungy is high street tradition; absolute chaos and disorganization is not. Even the incense was unappealing.
It’s a Waterbeds and Stuff, but 2-​stars about right in the end, it does its thing regardless. For me, on a campus tour for memory sake, I’ve outgrown it. Not that it should have developed in the same manner as me, and I do lament loss of the vibrant campus scene of my day, I still wonder though if this place has held too steady. Keeping a basic soul is a good thing yes, but it should change with the times too, a delicate balancing act that shows business is an art as well as a science. The campus W&B seems too stuck in 1996, 1982, 1971, whatever; it’s just messier.

This is literally the worst Waterbeds I’ve ever been in. If I could give it zero stars I would.
First every time I go in here no one ever acknowledges my presence. The employees are always having their own personal and unprofessionally related conversations. Today the apparent topic was a Super Mario Brothers cake they were waiting on someone to come back soon so they could eat it. The girl who rung me up overcharged me by two dollars, which I had to point out. Then she asked the other girl to help her fix it but she was too busy opening the top of the Super Mario Brothers Cake to help. She told the girl to do it herself. The girl couldn’t figure it out so the other one– Cake Lady finally came over to assist. Neither of them addressed me directly the entire time, neither spoke directly to me, only to each other, never made eye contact the entire time and the worst part was neither one apologized for overcharging me! cake Lady told me to go pick something else out that costs two dollars because it’s already rung up. Still no apology from either employee although it was clearly their mistake.
Even after I picked another box of incense (which were actually $ 1.50 not $ 2.00 btw)
All the original girl did was place my overpaid incense in the bag with the rest of them and hand them to me. Cake Lady had gone back over to the cake and had started to plot who will get the Mario pieces, pointing at where they would cut. She started talking to te girl who had rung me up as if I weren’t still standing there, niether one said goodbye, thank you or still!!! Apologize for them basically taking my money and not bothering to actually give me the amount of product I purchased. Which I’m pretty sure is illegal and at the very least seriously bad business. The two employees just picked up their conversation as if checking me out had been an annoyance and literally turned their backs to me as I walked out of the store.

Don’t let the name or the categorization of Waterbeds ‘N Stuff fool you– this place has absolutely no business selling waterbeds. It’s mostly– ahem– «stuff», or at least that’s how it is at the North Campus location that I’m reviewing in this instance. The short of it is that this place is a cut-​rate head shop for people that are too squeamish to walk 20 feet across the street to Contraband or, gasp, half a mile down High (hehehe…) to The Import House. «Yeah, mom, wait in the car for like 10 minutes while I run in and get a. uhhh…duvet cover. Right.»
It appears at first that the name isn’t completely off, as there’s a futon located on the sales floor to give the impression that bedding is an option here. I’ve never made any inquiry as to where the actual waterbeds are kept, but let me ask you this– would you be interested in purchasing a waterbed from a place that sells Roor bongs with the Insane Clown Posse logo on the side? As it says right above the box where I write this: Eek, methinks not!
So let’s get past all of that. The selection of «stuff» here, which clearly takes precedent over the «waterbeds», is definitely nothing to write home about. I say it’s all or nothing with these places, which means to me that all the extraneous items you can find here are pretty much useless. The selection of pipes is mediocre and pricey, the accessories (papers and such) are rarely fully-​stocked, and there’s just way too much other weird stuff going on here in general to get me in the mood to even look at it in the first place. The only person I can imagine digging a place like this is that weird uncle everyone has that lives in your grandma’s basement still and listens to Rush all day while plucking away at a Sears Wishbook acoustic he traded some kid down the street a plate of weed brownies for. And yes, he probably sleeps on a waterbed. I rest my case.