When I first came to Israel I thought shopping here was a blood sport. You could walk into a department store, and despite the evidence of personnel milling around, you could not get one of them to wait on you and take your money. Sometimes you could throw an object – this is the blood sport part – and hit one of them hard enough to draw attention, then you’d get down on your knees and spread your money out before you and maybe, maybe you’d leave the store with the desired purchase.
After all that, heaven alone could help you if there was a problem with the object and you wanted to return it. Not only would the store not take it back and not give you your money, it would deny ever selling it to you. But I have a receipt! “Anybody can forge a piece of paper.”
The commercial culture did a 180 about a decade or so ago. Now you cannot walk from one end of a store to the other without having to stop every few yards to scrape off the accumulated sales clerks you have clinging to you. The cosmetics departments are the worst. If you’re caught giving even a passing glance at any of the displays, an eager Russian woman will tackle you to the floor and won’t let you up until you hear all the things that are on sale. “Buy one concealer, get 10 free!” I still have 10 from last year, I plead.
Of course, the modern world has provided the perfect solution when something really needs to be bought: online shopping. It’s hassle-free, or relatively so, your purchase arrives at your door and you don’t get battered in the process. The only thing you have to worry about is identity theft.
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