The Kanchi Blog

Posted on

24th November 2011

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I don’t often go shopping, a trait I suspect I share with most men. It doesn’t happen often but when it does I like to think of it as a quasi-military operation: I go to a specific retailer for one or more specific items, I buy them and I leave. As Al Pacino would say, “That’s shopping guys. That’s all it is.”

As a happy result, I have no history of shopping as an activity, or a lifestyle, or an “experience”. Usually, all I’m left with afterwards is a receipt, the items I went for and a chunk of time gone. Wham, Bam, Thank you Ma’am. And that’s OK. It doesn’t bother me if the retailer doesn’t cuddle me afterwards, or call me the following week.

Row of coloured shopping bags

Recently, however, I did have a shopping “experience” and because it was my first time, I want to tell someone. I need to share.

The time had come to retire a particular piece of clothing and replace it. (Yes ladies, that’s how you should buy clothes. And don’t get me started on shoes.). I knew what I wanted and where to get it, so I took myself off to Marks & Spencer in Blanchardstown. I went directly to the Mens Clothing department, found the item and took it to the cash desk, which is where I had my experience. After I had paid, (should I have had to pay for my first time, I wonder), the staff member asked me, in a polite and friendly manner, whether I would prefer the item in a bag or not, and then offered, if I wanted, to hang the bag on the back of my chair. I was very pleasantly surprised. She had obviously received some disability awareness training or something. I didn’t take her up on the offer but that’s not the point. She noticed something and made an accurate effort to help, to great effect, which made me resolve to return to that shop for future purchases.

Just have to wait for the other sock of that pair to wear out now…