This is the registry tool for Macy’s.

• It requires a stylus.
  Old school.
• It shows you all sorts of information you don’t need as a user.
  Bridal Version 17.1.10! Yeah!
• It doesn’t show you the actual name of the thing that you’re registering for.
  Because engaged people memorize the UPC for all requested gifts.

Before we were allowed to get this awful machine, my husband and I had to tell Macy’s a ton of details about our wedding. At one point, this exact dialogue occurred:

Macy’s Lady: How many guests are you inviting?
Me: Next question please.
Macy’s Lady: It won’t let me make an account unless you answer that.
My then-fiancee: 500
Macy’s Lady: …… *

The pre-registry Q&A session was so strenuous that we should have taken that experience as an indicator of Macy’s customer service and run the other direction as quickly as possible. But then we finally got the scanner. Woo! The scanner is fun!

Too bad it was so difficult to use that my husband and I tried entering three items, failed, then went back to the wedding office and handed in the machine.

At Crate and Barrel you give the desk an ID, scan bar codes, and then go to a kiosk to enter your account information, which doesn’t include the question “How many guests?”

*Yeah, that dialogue is just a guess, but my husband really did inform Macy’s that we were going to have 500 guests. In turn they informed us of the exact number of over $500 gifts for which we should register.** A LOT of gifts.

**That last sentence is why I think we need to seriously reconsider today’s grammar rules.