The Scarlet Ruse
“A man came in to buy a beginner's stamp-collecting outfit for his son's birthday. I imitated a browser, leafing through big glassine pages on a countertop easel, looking at incredibly florid stamps from improbable countries, like Ajman, Zambia, and Bangladesh.I liked the way Mary Alice handled the customer. She was plugging an outfit which, with stamps, album, manual, hinges, and so on, came to $24.95. The man finally said he couldn't go over fifteen dollars. She told him there was a $14.95 kit..., but she could assemble something better for him. She took items from stock, added them up, and told him it came to $14.50. Then she threw in another packet of stamps as a birthday present from Mr. Fedderman. She did not patronize the man. She made it seem like a better deal than the more expensive spread.The narrow store seemed jammed full of merchandise in a bewildering confusion. But as I got used to it, I could see there was a logical order to the storage and display, and see that everything was bright and clean.After the man left, she moved over to where I stood at the counter and said, "It's sort of a policy in the trade, you know, to encourage kids to collect.MoreLess
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