The sweet smell of 'failure'

Sometimes it is an achievement to know that you cannot succeed in your stated aim.  It does save time and emotion to find out that the situation is not resolvable.  An example of this happened this morning.

The present for the Name Day needs to be in hand for the meal this evening.  We did have an idea of the present that would be acceptable: a particular perfume in a gaudy bottle.  We couldn’t find this perfume in our go-to perfume store (I have, for some reason that I do not fully comprehend, a loyalty card for this store!) or in our second and third choice of emporium.

The end result was that it was left to me to ‘sort it out’ by this evening.  My first plan of retail attack was to shop my way along the motorway and call in the various supermarkets enticingly scattered along the margins of the road.  This would have been a very expensive approach as, very much like my mother, I find it very difficult to go to shops and not buy something.  Anything.

Plan B was to go to El Corte Ingles, the shop that I passed on my way to The School on the Hill each day in a display of restraint that still astonishes!  This is a true one-stop store and each time I go there (in whatever location it is found) I feel as if I am back in Cardiff in Howell’s, as it has some of the old-world charm of that august institution.  I also knew that their perfume department was vast and if anywhere would have the elusive bottle then it would be there.

When I got there, relatively early, after my even earlier swim it was relatively empty.  And that applied to the various counters too.  When I eventually found one occupied by a lady of a certain age (my favourite choice of assistant) I had the sort of experience that, if it was general throughout shops in the area would empty my wallet!

The cheerful, chatty, informed help that I got at the Boss/Calvin Klein counter was exemplary. And it also follows that I spent much, much more than I intended, but what the hell, it’s a present and I am sure that it will be appreciated, and that is the main thing.  Isn’t it?  And it looks good in the box too!

It is possibly a sign of the times that I feel the need to praise what is, in effect, an example of competent, professional selling.  This should be the norm and not the notable exception.  It brings to mind the legendary experience I had one Saturday morning in town in Cardiff where every shop I went into provided service of the highest possible standard.  I was so overcome with delight that I started going into shops at random and making spurious enquiries to test whether the magic of the shopping experience could be extended.  And it was, wherever I went I was gifted polite, concerned, attention.  It was wonderful and it left me a little breathless and disbelieving.  I was so shocked that I spent nothing, just revelled in the ‘rightness’ of it all. 

But that shock would have worn off and the serious business of spending would have come upon me like a madness.  Except.  Except, of course, the next week, things were back to normal with morose unhelpfulness the norm, with the only exceptions being in those shops where I personally knew the assistants or owners.

In the course of persuading me to buy more than I thought that I would, the lady assistant’s conversation ranged pretty widely taking in politics, geography, food, foreigners, Brexit, Holland, and the composition of The United Kingdom.  My whining about price must have had some effect as she also game me handfuls of samples to lessen the financial blow!

Now, well, almost now, out to lunch as the start of the weekend!