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You Need a Number
A couple of years ago, I learned that you need a telephone number to buy sneakers and an address to buy furniture.
After selling my old house and before moving into this new one, my family and I lived with my sister-in-law and her family for a few weeks. On the first evening of my stay at sis-in-law s home, the sole blew off my sneaker. The rubber pealed off the bottom and I started walking around in a flap, step, flap, step, flap, step style. I needed new sneaks.
Some miles down the road there is a FeetFirst shoe store. My daughter came with me as I picked up my standard Nike fair, a pair of cross-trainers, and brought them to the register. "Phone number," the girl at the counter asked.
"Excuse me," I asked.
"Can I have your phone number?" She repeated.
"Umm. I don t have a phone."
She looked at me. I was dressed in my work duds slicked out in a nice silk tie, white shirt and crisp slacks. And then she glanced at my daughter, well-dressed and clean. The sales-girl s face wrinkled in confusion. I m sure she was thinking, "They look like they should have a phone. How could they not have a phone?"
"Listen," I broke the silence. "I just sold my home and am living with in-laws "
"That s okay," she interrupted. "Just give me their phone number."
"I don t know it," I said. This was followed by another pause and more strange looks from the girl. "I just want to buy a pair of sneakers."
"But I need a phone number."
I picked up a business card on the counter and read the number, 609-242-2667.
Hey, that s our number, the girl said.
It s the only number I know.
She sold me the sneakers.
After moving out of my sister-in-laws place and before moving into the new house, I lived a year-and-a-half in an apartment. Knowing I d be in an apartment for a while, I put our 15-year-old, over-worn dining room table into long-term storage. My plan was to buy a new, smaller dining room table for the apartment.
I went to Value City Furniture to take a look at a table my wife had seen in the Sunday paper. "If you like it order it," she said.
I liked it and wrangled a salesman into checking stock and availability. "It s in stock and we can get it delivered to you, and this is great, in about ten days."
"Ten days is no good. I need it now. You see, I m moving into a new apartment today and have no table. I need a table. Do you have one in the back that I can just bring home now?"
After some conversation, I found out that the warehouse is about an hour north of the store and that I could go there to pick it up. I placed the order giving the salesman all the requisite information until he got to, "Address?"
"I don t know."
"You don t know your address?"
"Nope. I don t. I know where the apartment is, but I don t know the address."
"We won t mail you anything," he said.
"That s not the issue. The issue is that I really don t know my address."
"Well, I need something for this form."
"Why? I m going to pick up the stuff myself. You re not delivering it. It shouldn t be a big deal." He paused in the same way that the girl trying to figure out a way to sell me sneakers without a phone number paused. "Can I make something up," I asked.
"I guess." He looked around to make sure the manager wasn t watching. Go ahead.
161st Street and River Avenue, Bronx, NY. Yankee Stadium.
Postscript
Shortly after buying the sneakers, I thought they were just just so-so. I like to break in sneakers the way I like to break in a baseball mitt. It takes a year or two to get the things just right. Besides, at the time I had my eye on a different pair.
I picked up the table with no problems. I even went back and bought a matching pub table. The guy who sold me my table was let go. I hope it wasn t because George Steinbrenner complained about the ValueCity junkmail.
Post-postscript
I just bought a new pair of sneakers to replace the ones bought above last week. The old ones still worked fine and they re finally broken in. I just wanted a new pair.
We moved into the house a little over six months ago. We decided to keep the small table. It s very nice and fits the house just perfectly.
Like you care.
Comments
ruminator said:
Like you care... I do.
Posted on Oct 18, 2005 09:55 AM
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