Shopping in New York
I love living in NYC. In some ways it is a caricature - it has the best of everything that the United States has to offer: culture, food, entertainment, excitement...you name it. But, it also has the worst of everything the US offers: snobism, racism (in fact, many different types of isms - I'm just far to lazy to list them all), poverty, stress, noise and of course shady businesses.
This week I had a run in with a shady business. Or not I actually, rather my roommate. We were walking down 23rd Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues - and my roommate decided he'd inquire about the latest model of Apple Notebook computers that had just been released. We step into the store and my roommate asks:
"Do you carry the new model?" "
"Yes" he is told.
Looking skeptical my roommate asks: "Whats the screen size on them"
"12, 14 and 17 inches" responds the lazy looking salesman.
At this point my roommate thanks the salesman and we exit the store. I'm a bit confused - my roommate wants to buy the computer (in fact, will buy it later in the day) so why not here? We walk five yards. "The guy doesn't know what he is talking about" the roommate declares "the new model doesn't come in any of those sizes."
In a way - the encounter is a great reminder - in this city double check everything you're told by a salesman. Also, I hope to one day know enough about anything to know when I am being blatantly misled. Ah...New York.
This week I had a run in with a shady business. Or not I actually, rather my roommate. We were walking down 23rd Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues - and my roommate decided he'd inquire about the latest model of Apple Notebook computers that had just been released. We step into the store and my roommate asks:
"Do you carry the new model?" "
"Yes" he is told.
Looking skeptical my roommate asks: "Whats the screen size on them"
"12, 14 and 17 inches" responds the lazy looking salesman.
At this point my roommate thanks the salesman and we exit the store. I'm a bit confused - my roommate wants to buy the computer (in fact, will buy it later in the day) so why not here? We walk five yards. "The guy doesn't know what he is talking about" the roommate declares "the new model doesn't come in any of those sizes."
In a way - the encounter is a great reminder - in this city double check everything you're told by a salesman. Also, I hope to one day know enough about anything to know when I am being blatantly misled. Ah...New York.
posted by Ilya Ehrenburg at 2:02 PM
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