Thursday 13 September 2007

the lady in Rosebys

Rosebys is a shop in Oxford that sells bedding and all things materially, including shower curtains, and as I've been keeping a grim eye on the one we discovered in the bathroom when we moved in, presumably decades old and coated with heavens knows what and I don't want to, I decided to go find a fresh one. It was then that I discovered Rosebys.
I in fact went looking a couple of weeks ago and bought two to try out, expecting to return the reject, and yesterday I went to do it.
When I walked in there were two salespeople behind the counter in front of my face, a youngish girl, and a lady I'd say in her early 70s late 60s maybe, with bleached, quaffed and cemented-in-place hair. She didn't look up as I approached the counter, and after my greeting and my explanation of why I was there and what I'd like to do, she continued not to look at me, snatched my Roseby's bag from the counter where I'd laid it, and began tittering away on the register. She also began to hum. Or sing. Couldn't really tell which. There was some pop-techno song playing from the store's system which I'd never heard but expect I will not stop hearing everywhere I go for the next month or so until it and the band singing it will disappear completely from the face of the earth to be replaced by more fresh monotony. The sales "assistant" (BIT of a stretch in my mind, let's face it) was WELL into it, and even had her little harmonies all worked out. Thoughts of waking Ned Divine spring to mind ("did you think Mrs. Kennedy would cash 6 million pounds at the post office?"). Anyways, I've been warned by my husband that customer service is not what it could be here in the UK. Thus far I've found this generally but not always to be true.

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