Sneaking
up on a pair of expensive shoes
by
Robert LaFrance
I have had enough of the phrase ‘or
you can buy it online’. The message is that we old-fashioned types who would
prefer to walk into a store and buy something are dinosaurs, worthy of snickers
and sneers.
Those stores we prefer to walk into
are now only ‘bricks and mortar’ as if that’s a bad thing. Somebody said that,
accompanied by a sneer, to me last week, and I pointed out that the only thing
different these days is that companies like Amazon just have bigger ‘bricks and
mortar’ buildings compared to Lila Goodine’s store that used to be located in
Tilley. In fact, Amazon, as we speak, is entertaining bids from cities that
want to house its second headquarters that will cost $5 BILLION and will
provide 50,000 jobs.
Now THAT’S bricks and mortar! I
doubt if Tilley has put in a bid.
All that’s really happening is that
jobs are being moved, as usual, from smaller areas to the big cities. As Grampy
would have said: “I can’t believe so many people would want to live so far away
from everything here in Tilley.”
***********************
Speaking of cities, day before
yesterday I got lost in Fredericton’s traffic circle. Really. I have gone
around Halifax’s and Riverview’s circles without mishap except for taking an
unexpected detour to Saskatoon in each case, but that Fredericton traffic
circle is beyond even my sharp wit, canniness, perception and horse sense. I
blundered into that Fredericton circle like a lamb going into a night club or
Donald Trump attempting to make sense.
Have you experienced the phenomenon?
Picture yourself in an electric clothes dryer, then close your eyes, then have
someone hit you behind the left ear with a rolling pin. I entered that traffic
circle at 10:10 am and emerged at 3:06 PM. Behind me and ahead of me were seven
police cars and an old guy pushing a shopping cart full of toilet paper. He
kept yelling: “Follow the Charmin!”
It was a scary experience, but I did
finally get out and found myself at the corner of Smythe and Prospect Streets.
Still unnerved, I turned left into the oncoming traffic and fetched up along a
sidewalk where the old guy with the toilet paper gesticulated that I should
back up and turn right, which put me right back into the traffic circle, except
going the wrong direction.
**********************
As one who is near the age of
seventy, I have some advice for people my age if they want to buy a pair of
sneakers.
Don’t call them sneakers. After my
traffic circle experience, I went into a big
store called SportChek. I looked EVERYWHERE for a sign showing me where
I could look at some sneakers. It reminded me of shopping for shampoo in
grocery stores and pharmacies and finding everything but.
In SportChek I finally broke down
and asked a clerk where I find some sneakers. He looked at me as if I were made
of bricks and mortar. “Do you mean running shoes, walking shoes…” He listed
another 12 kinds of shoes, none of them sneakers.
All this has the effect of annoying
me because, first of all, he was young, which meant I hated him right away. I
looked around the 5-acre store for a clerk over thirty years of age and there
was no such creature. I was stuck with this guy and his designer beard.
“Look,” I said patiently, “I am just
looking for a pair of sneakers so I can go on a walking trail--”
“Aha!” he said, as if I had just
revealed the secrets of fusion and how to win at Blackjack. “So it’s WALKING
shoes you want!” All of his sentences from then on ended, I am sure, with
exclamation points. Looking at my lemonade belly, he commented: “You don’t do
much running do you?” I said I sometimes walked fast. “Then it’s Intermediate
shoes you want!”
Then he led me over to a dark corner
of the store and pointed to a shoebox that was covered with dust and age. “Tell
me that you wear size eleven and I’ll sell you those ones for half price!” How
much was that, I asked timidly. He mentioned a figure that was roughly twice my
monthly car payment, plus tax. I bought them, just to get out of that blasted
city. By the way, I got caught once more in the traffic circle.
-end-
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