Unobservant People
My foot surgeon has allowed me to go into tennis shoes, and that meant that I had to buy a pair of shoes that I would feel comfortable wearing to the office for the next month. Our office has a “no sneakers” policy, so I wanted my tennis shoes to be discreet and non-obvious. I knew exactly which shoes I wanted, too.
Reebok makes a shoe style called “Princess” which is very simple and sleek; it reminds me a lot of the old-style nurses’ shoes, only not quite so clunky. It’s extremely comfortable, and I have been wearing them since they first came out, maybe in the late 1980s.
The best thing about Princess shoes is that they are available in BLACK leather as well as white. And the black ones look very much like regular “sensible” work shoes. They “hide.” I won’t look sexy and stylish in them, but at 5 feet tall and 240 pounds, I don’t really do “sexy” well anyway. “Stylish” I can usually manage. I will wear slacks a lot for the next month, so my shoes won’t be as noticeable.
However, I didn’t have a pair of black Princess in my closet, so I knew I’d need to buy some. No problem. Sports Authority is just around the corner, and they carry Princess. But when I got there, they had only the white ones.
So I asked the clerk if any of their other stores in town would have the black. He called around, and they didn’t. Then I asked if he knew of any other stores in town that carried Reebok Princess. He suggested a new Shoe Carnival WAAAAAY out in Collierville (a 30-minute drive from where I was). We decided to head out that way and see if they had them.
We pulled out of the Sports Authority parking lot and headed up the street. I happened to be looking out the passenger-side windows at the stores in the strip center we had just left. And I saw …
A REEBOK STORE!
Of course, we immediately turned into the shopping center’s driveway and went to the Reebok store, which had exactly what I needed … on SALE!
Now, I can understand the Sports Authority clerk wanting me to shop in SA stores. But since they didn’t have the brand and style that I wanted and he was having to recommend a competitor anyway, wouldn’t you think he would have sent me to the Reebok store three bays down in the shopping center, instead of having me drive 30 miles to a store that might or might not have what I wanted? I mean, if I was just looking for “cheap tennis shoes,” I could understand, but I specifically wanted Reebok. So ya think the manufacturer’s store 300 yards away might have what I’m looking for?
I asked the Reebok store’s clerk when they’d moved in, and she said that they had been there about six months. Now, I don’t shop in that center very often, so it’s understandable that I didn’t know about the store. But the SA clerk works in the same shopping center, merely a football field away. You’d think he’d have noticed a new athletic shoe store in six months of coming to work every day.
People are so unobservant!