Tuesday, March 16, 2004

What the big black man says, the little white guy does.

After eating lunch and talking a bit to people on AIM, I ventured out to peruse the tie collections of local establishments. I wanted a tie that I can wear today and on Thursday, when I will wear a silvery shirt. The problem with teaching in a yuppie area is that there are only yuppie stores around. Banana Republic is here, but their tie selection sucks. And that's about it for the men's stores. Well, except for Jos. A. Bank. So I headed in there.

It took me a minute to get my bearings in the store, but when I did, I went straight for the tie area, where a large black man asked if he could help me. I told him what I was looking for: a tie that would go with my blue shirt that I had on, and the silver shirt. After looking at a few ties, he said, you should get this one. Let's sum up the situation. Me: white guy computer dork, not exactly fashion king. Him: black, works in clothing store, wears nice clothes. Easy choice, I bought the tie.

I didn't look at the price tag, though. Oops. I saw a sign near the ties that said "3 for $162.50" or something like that, and it was only after I checked out that I noticed that it was for the shirts. The tie, of course, wasn't $55. It was $69. Plus tax. So $73 later, I had myself a new tie, I put it on in the dressing room, went back to class.

But I can't help but think that $73 buys a lot of lunches at school.

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