Occupational Hazards 5 - Atlanta Gift Mart

Friday, Missy and I carpooled with some co-workers to the ATLANTA GIFT MART (a.k.a. AMERICASMART) for work. We arrived early in the morning to find the sidewalks covered in snow, and the streets dangerously sheathed in ice. We opted to take the hotel shuttle van the few blocks down to the mart, not wanting to navigate the slippery sidewalks:







After a few hours of work we decided to grab some SUBWAY SAMMICHES for lunch, and sat by the two-story, ceiling-to-floor fountain in the garden section of the Mart:







I brushed my breath clean with these HOMEOPATHIC STRESS MINTS - the first of a few SWAG items we scored while walking the show. We also traded business cards for a couple of tubs of ice creamy DIBS:







One showroom was giving away these books - "TEA WITH A TWIST" - and the author and photographer were there to sign copies. I asked them to sign the book for Missy's (fake) cousin, PEARL GREY..."kinda like the tea!" I told them...they signed it without batting an eye:





Then, walking down the hallway in another building, we came across the CASH COLOR WHEEL, where you could spin to win cash money and other fabulous prizes:



Missy decided to press her luck...



...NO WHAMMIES! NO WHAMMIES!...



...NO WHAMMIES! NO WHAMMIES!...



WINNER! Missy won ONE DOLLAR...but the guy running the wheel ran out of dollar bills, so he gave Missy a FIVE DOLLAR BILL instead! Then I spun the wheel and won five bucks for real...BEST MART EVER!





We were pooped after walking non-stop for many many hours and decided to bundle up and make our way back to the hotel. It was freezing outside and the sidewalks became slippery, as pedestrians packed the snow into patches of ice. I nearly tore my groin muscles a couple of times while slipping on the icy sidewalks. We walked slowly, arm in arm, stopping only briefly to play in the snow...









Back in our hotel room, we took stock of the free swag we collected before settling down for the night. Our haul included a book, a box of mints, several candles, and cold hard cash...







We got up early the next day for breakfast in the hotel lobby. We ate light, but made up for it by grazing the free food samples in the GOURMET section of the Mart...





After several more hours of walking, Missy and I decided to rest our tired feets in the MARKET CLUB LOUNGE, taking full advantage of their cushy leather sofas...









We ran into the CASH CUBE where even more money was being given away, but we decided to skip the long line in favor of catching FOOD NETWORK celebrity, ALTON BROWN (host of the science-meets- cooking show, "GOOD EATS", and color commentator for the hit show IRON CHEF AMERICA), do a cooking demo in the Mart's "KITCHEN STUDIO"...







We snacked on free samples while waiting for Alton Brown to arrive. The crowd was large and fairly restless, with most people having waited several hours for the hometown hero. We got there just in time to grab some floorspace in the very back. At long last, Alton came out to much applause and he didn't disappoint. He was smarmy, knowledgeable, and charming...and a lot thinner in person. I thought, "dang, TV really does add ten pounds!" It wasn't until later that we learned that he actually lost a bunch of weight doing some fad diet...









Alton showing us his bag of meat:





After the demo, we headed for the cavernous "Building 3" - the APPAREL MART - to cap off the day with a FREE CUPCAKE. It wouldn't be a proper Mart experience without ingesting a cupcake of some sort and luckily, we found out that our favorite cupcake bakery, THE ATLANTA CUPCAKE FACTORY, was handing them out like flu shots...