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!
