I’m a lousy shopper. I can be pretty effective ordering things on the Internet, but send me off to shops and I give up way too soon or buy something I wasn’t looking for.
Notwithstanding my shortcomings, I went shopping for shoes today. The weather has gotten hot, and I regret the fact that I left my lightweight athletic shoes at home. I’ve been wearing my Crocks at the gym and my black walking shoes most of the time, but I really wanted something to wear with shorts now that it’s hot out. I also wanted something light to wear at my dance classes, but that wasn’t my priority.
So, I went off to the Mirror Mall. This is not like any American shopping center at all. It houses an innumerable array of tiny-tiny stores, each one typically big enough for a shopkeeper and a couple of customers. Many of the stores on the second floor sell shoes, and I wandered the hallways and visited several featuring casual or athletic shoes. I didn’t visit any other floors, and I don’t even know what’s overhead. Nor did I stay in any store without marked prices because I quickly learned that if the price was not marked, we’d be talking about more than I had in my pocket. I learned further that nobody has much stock and finding an attractive floor sample didn’t guarantee that the store stocked my size.
I did find a very comfortable pair of Ecco water shoes, and the price worked out to about $130. That’s not much different from Amazon’s price, and I was tempted. But since I’d have to find an ATM before I could buy them, I kept walking. Do I really want water shoes?
Next, I came across another store where the shopkeeper played to two of my key weaknesses. First, I have a soft spot for pretty women, and she had me going from the moment I walked into her store. Second, she appealed to my vanity and told me how wonderfully I speak Russian. The upshot of all this is that I came home with a fifty-dollar pair of wing-tip sneakers
that have no arch support at all but they look quite snazzy to me. I think they’ll be fine for dancing, but probably not so great if I want to walk more than a kilometer or two. Now do I have to go back and try to find athletic shoes? I hope not.
This is why I don’t go shopping very often.
Notwithstanding my shortcomings, I went shopping for shoes today. The weather has gotten hot, and I regret the fact that I left my lightweight athletic shoes at home. I’ve been wearing my Crocks at the gym and my black walking shoes most of the time, but I really wanted something to wear with shorts now that it’s hot out. I also wanted something light to wear at my dance classes, but that wasn’t my priority.
So, I went off to the Mirror Mall. This is not like any American shopping center at all. It houses an innumerable array of tiny-tiny stores, each one typically big enough for a shopkeeper and a couple of customers. Many of the stores on the second floor sell shoes, and I wandered the hallways and visited several featuring casual or athletic shoes. I didn’t visit any other floors, and I don’t even know what’s overhead. Nor did I stay in any store without marked prices because I quickly learned that if the price was not marked, we’d be talking about more than I had in my pocket. I learned further that nobody has much stock and finding an attractive floor sample didn’t guarantee that the store stocked my size.
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Next, I came across another store where the shopkeeper played to two of my key weaknesses. First, I have a soft spot for pretty women, and she had me going from the moment I walked into her store. Second, she appealed to my vanity and told me how wonderfully I speak Russian. The upshot of all this is that I came home with a fifty-dollar pair of wing-tip sneakers
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This is why I don’t go shopping very often.
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