Tuesday, February 14, 2006

SGL in STL

Went shoe shopping recently. My crappy athletic shoes (that I paid a lot for) give me blisters and all sorts of other problems. In an effort to prevent gnarly feet when I'm in (allegedly) comfortable shoes, I went to a shoe store where they fit you, and match your feet to a shoe (as opposed to me selecting sneakers solely by aesthetics).

I'm not positive, but think that the shoe salesman was hitting on me. And it was not a good thing. I'm not sure where to begin or how to best depict it, so I'll just throw out some of the questions/details shared with moi - the one who came for shoes & shoes only, thank you:

"What are you reading?"
Now, this seems harmless enough, but he was helping someone else at the time. And I was sitting, quietly, minding my own business, waiting my turn and READING. I've been on my share of planes with the overly talkative/new best friend passenger sitting next to me. This is how the TMI (too much information) conversation starts.

His work history.
Yes, folks, I know his 15+ years of work history. He tried to impress me with his travels and seemed to like quoting $ amounts. Don't try to impress me, just be yourself dude.

Where he's living and where he's lived.
I know now - with no effort/solicitation on my part - how much he's paid for the apartments he's lived in (over $1500 in STL), which areas of STL he's lived and where he lives now. I even saw (again, no prompting on my part - I was all about the shoes) a brochure of the current complex in which he lives, complete with layouts of each type of unit. He pointed out that he's currently in a smaller one but will be upgrading soon. This part got creepy - he pushed the brochure in my face. Not sure why he had the brochure with him and why he felt compelled to share, but ok.

What are you doing on Valentine's Day?
Again, to some this may seem fairly conversational. Based on other comments, it wasn't. And I wasn't - interested, that is.

I am filtering a bit because he was an NGB. Nice guy but suffering from TMI. Granted I was a novelty at the store (the average customer that afternoon had more than five gray hairs on their head and/or was male), so fresh meat, few wrinkles, and V-Day approaching, but OY VEY.

I did leave with new shoes though, and think they'll be a better fit. . .

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