Call of the Mall by Paco Underhill

Author:Paco Underhill
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2004-04-24T20:00:00+00:00

We had seen enough of the store, and we’re now back in the safety of the mall proper. Albert still hasn’t gotten his wife a gift—in truth, he has barely looked at the goods—but each shopper has a unique style, like a DNA fingerprint. Something tells me his style incorporates a great deal of procrastination, followed by a panicky trip (maybe back to this same mall) at the eleventh hour. A lot of men shop that way—it’s shopping for people who hate shopping. This is another reason why stores have to operate differently if they want to accommodate male-pattern buying. For Albert, that wall of preselected, preboxed gifts may start looking awfully good in two weeks.

“How about this jewelry store?” he asks when we’re a few paces away from Tiffany.

I hadn’t even noticed this one before. The windows are large, which doesn’t feel particularly jewelerlike. And the first thing you see is color, a kind of pinky-mauvey-rosy shade that predominates. It looks girly, and not in the best way possible. But there in the window, nestled among the swirls and swaths and swoops of fabric, is jewelry.

Inside we find a horseshoe of display cases, all down around midthigh level, meaning they’re not the easiest things in the world to examine for fully grown men who don’t yet feel inclined to bend over or to sit at the little benches before the cases.

Across the cases we face a pair of middle-aged women, extremely pleasant of face and form, wearing pastel-colored fuzzy sweaters and soforth—not at all the stylish keepers of the crown jewels we encountered at the more glamorous shops.

“Hi, ladies!”

“Well, hello,” they reply, more or less in unison. Nobody will confuse this store with Tiffany or Cartier. Or the discount place, for that matter, if only because it’s hard to imagine any male wandering in here searching for the key to the front or back door. This is an interesting concept, a jewelry store aimed only at women shoppers.

“Wow, pink lights and flowers,” Albert says under his breath.

“You think this would be forbidding to a man?”

“Gee, this is what a jewelry store would look like if Hallmark decorated it.”

On the other hand, the prices here are moderate, perfect for the woman buying for herself or another woman.

“Is there anything we can show you gentlemen?” a clerk asks.

“I’m not sure I can fit my knees under that counter,” I say, eyeing a fancy little bench.

“Oh, it’s really comfortable,” she says.

“Yeah,” I reply, “but you’re not six-foot-four!”

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