October 14, 2015 Article

The Old Coot gets a bargain?

By Merlin Lessler

So there you are. You walk into a small antique shop; the bell rings, announcing your presence and the nightmare begins. You look around and discover to your dismay you are the only customer in the store. You came in to kill time, not to buy anything, now you are in an awkward situation. The owner greets you, delighted that she has a customer, it’s been a long day and you’re the first human to cross her threshold. “What can I help you with?” she asks. You give her the standard “just looking” response and hope she’ll go back to her knitting or Candy Land game or whatever she was doing to stop the boredom from driving her insane. But, she doesn’t; she hovers. You pick up something to see how much it is, to get some sense of her pricing philosophy, hoping it’s low, bargain basement low. It’s a clock, a wind up Roy Rogers’s alarm clock from the 1950’s, something you desperately wanted as a kid, but never got.  It’s in mint condition; it works, and the price tag says $6.50. “Wow! That’s cheap,” you say to yourself. “I’ll get it.”

Before you can turn it back over to study the face, she says, “I can do better on the price.” Do better? Wow, it’s dirt-cheap and she can do better? I like this place. A minute ago I hated “this place.” Hated that I was the only customer and would feel uncomfortable looking around and leaving without making a purchase. Now, all the tension had dissipated. “How much better?” I asked. Out of curiosity more than anything. How much lower on $6.50 for an antique, tin, Roy Rogers’s alarm clock in mint condition can she go? “I’ll do 60,” she responds. Now, I’m confused. 60? Sixty cents less? Down to $5.90? “I’ll take it,” I announce. And, put it down, saying I want to look around some more. And I mean it; the pressure is off.

She takes the clock, telling me it will be at the register and I continue on my mission, to kill time while my wife is next door examining an endless selection of flip flops. That’s the trouble with small town shopping, there isn’t a Radio Shack or hardware store for a man to carouse in and avoid following his wife around like a five-year-old, and constantly asking, “Can we go now?” It’s what drew me into the antique shop, into the nightmare of being the only customer and determined not to buy anything.

But now I was safe. So, I moved through the aisles examining the goods: a Duncan yoyo marked $40, A Daisy BB gun marked $110 and a pack of unopened baseball cards with a $50 sticker on the back. Wow! I got the only bargain in the place! Then, doubt started to seep in. Did I misread the price tag on the Roy Rogers clock? The more I looked the more convinced I became. There was a toy clock waiting for me at the register that probably had a $65 price tag on it, which caused her to say, “I can do 60.” That’s the only thing that made sense. I had no intention of buying it. I needed a rush of customers to distract the owner and allow me to slip out the door. My worst nightmare came true; I was the only customer in a store with the owner waiting for me to pay for something I didn’t want. This is a perfect example of why old coots hate to go shopping.