. . . I displayed a burst of boldness in a shop. Allow me to entertain you. I was having lunch recently with some of the new friends GOD has graciously brought into my life this year, talking about business and how some customers can want an arm and a leg from you in exchange for chicken feet, haggling their way through your prices. We all agreed that there were appropriate times and places for haggling as we all nodded in concur-sion!
I suddenly remembered that fateful Saturday morning I haggled in a Clarks store when I lived in Loughborough. A bit of background. I am relatively tall and have longer feet than the average lady. But hehehe, I ain’t average, init? So, I can only buy shoes from a select number of stores, and those stores are not necessarily cheap either, meaning I usually wait to harvest my shoes during their sale season.
As the Good LORD Himself would have it, I almost only can buy shoes from Clarks and Next. Unless of course I am buying trainers and even that is a bit of a hassle. Once in a while, New Look or Dorothy Perkins might show up with my size, which is 9/43. And it must, has to be a 43 or just calling it a size 9 doesn’t mean squat. Some of you might be thinking I could shop in Evans. But my feet ain’t that wide at all! So no, can’t do.
Anyway, into this Clarks store I waltz having seen the beloved red label posters on their windows. I go straight to their sale rack, and lo and behold, it was a fulfilment of Scripture! The steps of a good (lady) are ordered by the LORD! It was as if GOD had rained size 9/43 shoes from Heaven above into that store below. I can just imagine GOD smiling at my amazement at the number of size 9 shoes waiting for HIS daughter to pluck off those racks.
Now, since my sister and mum also wear the same size, I knew that even if I cleared the whole rack of size 9’s, the shoes would not go to waste! Such wisdom! I know! Lol . . . So I got comfortable in the store. I probably even sat down which is something I almost never do. Took some pairs of shoes and begun to try them on. And as I did, the store manager walks by and says, those shoes look good on you.
This is where the Holy Ghost Himself took over my logical brain. I can almost say the next words that came out of my mouth did not go through my mind. Or even if they did, they went by over the speed limit and the police neurons could not catch up with them before they slid over to my tongue.
I responded, so what are you going to do about it? I still wasn’t thinking at this point, as I eagerly awaited his response. I must have caught him by surprise as he might have been expecting a simple thank you or an easy smile for his kind compliments. But he served the bait that got him hooked. He came back with, I’ll see what I can do.
That was fine by me as I kept fitting the shoes I wanted in and out, finally deciding on three. These shoes were already on sale, I think about 50% off. Well, I headed over to the till ready to pay and to see what discount the manager was going to offer. And people, he offered me an additional 20% discount on my whole purchase.
(No, that’s not 70% discount in total! That’s why you should have paid attention in your high school Maths lesson! A 50% discount followed by a 20% discount is equivalent to a 60% discount! You’re welcome!!)
Well, I was happy with the extra money off and thanked him but with an attitude of, of course, I expected that to happen. No, I didn’t. As I walked out the store, with my harvest in hand, I wondered to myself if I could have pushed for more. After all, size 9’s are probably harder to sell and I would have been doing them a favour. #olivertwist.
Maybe next time, who knows?
To your sudden displays of uncharacteristic faith, . . .
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